Fish and wildlife news: special issue on children and nature

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U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Summer/Fall 2007
Fish & Wildlife News
Path to Discovery / 12 River Explorers / 16
Rx for Healthy Kids / 14 Linking Girls to the Land / 18
Special Issue
children & nature
2 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
Director’s Corner / 1
News Briefs / 3
Service Spotlight / 8
Science / 24
Around the Service / 28
Features
Departments In Their Own Words / 42
Our People / 45
Transitions / 45
Honors / 47
In Memoriam / 49
what’s inside
On the cover: Two children
explore the woods near the
National Conservation
Training Center in
West Virginia.
Steve Hillebrand / USFWS
Back to Nature / 8
Service employees are connecting
children with the land and with the
agency’s conservation mission.
By David Eisenhauer
Path to Discovery / 12
An innovative partnership in
Washington State helped blaze a trail
for all lifelong learners.
By Taylor Pittman
A Prescription for Healthy Kids / 14
Getting children outside is not just
about fun and games. Their health
may depend on it.
By Kyla Hastie and Shani Howard
River Explorers / 16
Class is in session at the
Upper Mississippi River National
Wildlife and Fish Refuge.
By Cindy Samples
Linking Girls to the Land / 18
By Jennifer Anderson
Senses in the Desert / 22
By Betty Mulcahy
Editor’s note: Connecting
children with nature is a
theme that clearly resonates
with Service employees.
We received about 100
submissions for this special
issue from all regions and
nearly every Service program.
To accommodate the high
volume of stories, we have
added a regular section
called Around the Service that
highlights events, programs
and activities in all Service
regions. Stories that did not
make it into the print edition
eventually will be included
in an online version of Fish
& Wildlife News, which is
currently under development.
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 1
from the director
Borrowing From Our Children
Growing up in the hills of Harlan County, Kentucky,
I never thought about the importance of connecting
with nature; it was as much a part of my life as
breathing. If I wasn’t up in the mountains chasing
squirrels, I was down on the Cumberland River trying
to fish and run trot lines or making boats out of old
car tops. Even though we didn’t have a lot of money,
I always felt rich.
For many kids today, however, exploring nature is fast
becoming a thing of the past. Time in the woods has
been replaced by time in front of a computer or
television screen; unstructured play has been replaced
by organized events run by adults; the art of
daydreaming has been replaced by a non-stop
schedule. Author Richard Louv, who writes about this
in his book Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our
Children from Nature Deficit Disorder, believes one
of the biggest problems is fear: Parents are terrified
of “stranger danger,” and many view the outdoors as
more of a threat than a sanctuary.
The result is a younger generation that is less
active and less interested in spending time outside,
which can lead to a host of physical and emotional
problems. And you can bet kids who prefer virtual
reality to natural reality are going to have a tough
time understanding why they should care about
conservation.
So what can we do?
The Service has identified connecting people
with nature as one of its six highest priorities.
We have formed a Children and Nature Working
Group — including representatives from every region
and program — to identify ways to reach out to
communities and build awareness that “nature play”
is good for both children and adults.
This special edition of Fish & Wildlife News provides
a glimpse of what Service employees from coast to
coast are already doing to reconnect children with
nature. From the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay
National Wildlife Refuge, where youngsters sample
brine shrimp in the salt ponds or investigate bird and
plant life with their parents, to the Chesapeake Bay
Field Office, where students create schoolyard
habitats outside their classroom door, our land base
and our people are helping folks of every age to get
outdoors. But we can always do more. We should look
for opportunities to connect children and families to
nature as we go about our daily work and help them
share in our conservation mission.
Connecting people with nature should not be just
another box to check off on a performance plan; it
should be something we want to do, something that is
a part of us. Sometimes when I’m bass fishing on a
lake and the sun is just breaking over the horizon and
the birds begin to fly low across the water, I lay down
my rod and realize I didn’t come here to catch fish;
I came for the healing power of nature and to feel
better as a human being. I know many of you have
had similar experiences and have a strong desire to
help people — especially youngsters — rediscover
what Rachel Carson called a “sense of wonder”
for the outdoors. Now is the time for all of us to act
on that desire.
John James Audubon once said, “A true
conservationist is a man who knows that the
world is not given by his fathers but borrowed
from his children.” It is time for us to pay back
that loan and share the riches of nature with
tomorrow’s caretakers.
To learn more about the Service’s children and nature
initiative, visit <www.fws.gov/children>.
Director Hall with
youngsters during
a break at the
National Dialogue
on Children
and Nature at
the National
Conservation
Training Center in
September 2006.
Todd Harles / USFWS
2 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
guest column
No Child Left Inside
By Richard Louv
Leveraging its expertise, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service is already a leader in the growing public
movement to leave no child inside.
The future of children and conservation is at stake,
and this organization takes the outcome seriously.
Studies show that most conservation leaders credit
their commitment to the environment to two sources:
many hours spent outdoors, when they were children,
“in a keenly remembered wild or semi-wild place in
childhood or adolescence, and an adult who taught
respect for nature,” according to University of
Colorado environmental psychologist Louise Chawla.
I wonder how many of you reading this have a
personal story confirming her statement.
The famous biologist E.O. Wilson addressed this
in his memoir, Naturalist: “Most children have
a bug period, and I never outgrew mine.
Hands-on experience at the critical time, not
systematic knowledge, is what counts in the making
of a naturalist.”
Edmund Morris’ description of the boyhood years of
the presidential patron of conservation, Theodore
Roosevelt, suggests a similar genesis:
“Teedie’s interest in all ‘curiosities and living things’
became something of a trial to his elders. Meeting
Mrs. Hamilton Fish on a streetcar, he absentmindedly
lifted his hat, whereupon several frogs leaped out of
it.” A family maid protested the boy’s predilections:
“How can I do the laundry with a snapping turtle tied
to the legs of the sink?”
We may owe the existence of our protected national
wild lands to that turtle.
Unfortunately, today we see diminishing sales of
fishing and hunting licenses and a decline in
attendance at many of our national parks. If the gap
between children and nature continues to widen,
where will the future conservationists come from?
How will future natural scientists and nature
poets develop? What will happen to the political
constituency for our fish and wildlife, streams
and rivers, parks and refuges?
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service offers wonderful
opportunities for fishing, hunting, wildlife
photography and other outdoor experiences.
But the Service Directorate is determined to do
more — to create, in essence, a new national backyard.
Here are possibilities to consider:
Wildlife refuges close to urban area areas should be
expanded to provide kids with the hands-dirty, feet-wet
experiences that no classroom or digitally
simulated nature provides.
The Youth Conservation Corps should be expanded.
Conservation agencies should reach even deeper into
inner-city schools and neighborhoods to offer these
youngsters substantial and repeating experiences in
nature. These agencies could identify the kids with
nature talents, and then encourage and prepare them
for careers in conservation and the natural sciences.
As a tribute to Rachel Carson, the National Wildlife
Refuge System could designate certain areas as Sense
of Wonder Zones— special, safe places that would
encourage children to build tree forts and collect (and
release) bugs and turtles just as E.O. and Teedie did.
This is not to suggest that kids be allowed to damage
protected natural areas. But children cannot love
what they can never touch. As a matter of policy,
the conservation services should view the child-in-nature
as an endangered species, an indicator species
of the future — because if the young are not bonding
with nature now, who will care about the refuges in
the future?
Evidence suggests that children and adults benefit
so much from contact with nature that conservation
“can now be viewed as a public health strategy,”
says Howard Frumkin, Director of the National
Center for Environmental Health, Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention.
Think about that for a moment. This is a powerful
argument, one that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service is well positioned to make, and by so doing
will improve the health of children and the health
of the earth.
Richard Louv is the author of Last Child in the Woods:
Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder and
chairman of the Children & Nature Network
<www.cnaturenet.org>.
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 3
Service Expands Wildlife Forensics Lab
of Agriculture requirements
for containment of potentially
bio-hazardous materials entering
the United States; an expanded
state-of-the-art genetics lab;
a modern necropsy unit; new
offices and meeting rooms;
and an odor-free “bug room,”
where the lab’s domestic beetle
collection chews meat off
bones so scientists have
pristine skeletons to analyze.
“The expansion will really
enhance our ability to engage
with the national and
international wildlife forensics
communities,” said Ken Goddard,
director of the lab, which is
named after a longtime director
of the Service’s Law Enforcement
Program. “We simply didn’t have
the proper facility where we
could keep diseases contained so
we had to refuse some cases.”
The addition will be dedicated on
August 16, and the lab and new
facilities will be open for public
tours sometime in the spring.
“The forensics lab is essential to
our work in enforcing wildlife
laws and protecting resources
in this country and around the
world,” said Service Director
H. Dale Hall. “The lab helps
our special agents and wildlife
inspectors develop the evidence
they need to bring charges and
obtain convictions.”
Besides aiding the work of
Service law enforcement officers,
the lab, with a staff of 35 and
a 2007 budget of $3.5 million,
provides forensic support to all 50
state fish and wildlife agencies.
By treaty, it is the official crime
lab of the 172 signatory countries
of the Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species of
Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and
the Wildlife Subgroup of Interpol.
With global illegal trade in wildlife
and related products estimated at
billions of dollars each year, the
lab has no shortage of work.
DNA analysis done by the lab’s
scientists led to the conviction of
U.S. Caviar and Caviar, Ltd., in
2001, resulting in a $10.4 million
fine — the most ever in a wildlife
trafficking case. In 2000, work
done at the lab led to convictions
for the illegal sale of smuggled
shahtoosh shawls made from
the highly endangered Tibetan
antelope. More recently,
genetics work by lab scientists
led to the 2006 conviction
of a Portland, Oregon, man
who admitted selling shavings
from the horn of a black
rhinoceros, one of Africa’s
most endangered species.
Authorities in Israel want the lab
to help them find out who has
been killing wild gazelles but
Goddard said they had to
decline because of the lack
of a containment lab. The new
Bio-Hazard III facility will
change that.
Among the many discoveries by
the lab’s scientists is a means of
distinguishing non-fossilized
ancient mammoth and mastodon
elephant ivory from modern
African and Asian elephant ivory,
utilizing the simplest lab
instrument known: a protractor.
After discovering that each
species has its own hemoglobin
molecules, lab scientists
developed a species
identification technique that
takes 15 minutes instead of up
to three days.
The lab’s scientists are starting
research on a means of
determining where an animal
is from by identifying the
stable isotopes in its body. This
technique will enable the lab
to determine the origin of an
animal or animal product,
thus confirming or contradicting
the information on an import/
export permit.
The new addition also features
a forensics garden designed
to educate the public about
wildlife forensics and provide
a protective buffer for the lab.
This scientific garden, one of only
four or five in the world (including
the one in France where
Leonardo daVinci is buried) was
designed by 14 graduate students
from the University of Oregon’s
Landscape Architecture School.
It will be planted this fall with
native plants.
“A walkway will take visitors
through the three-dimensional
garden showing the connection
of victim, suspect and crime
scene and leading to a solution,”
Goddard said. “This will be the
only one of its kind.”
Joan Jewett, External Affairs,
Portland, Oregon
news briefs
Since 1988, the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service’s Clark R. Bavin
National Fish and Wildlife
Forensics Laboratory in Ashland,
Oregon, has helped solve wildlife
crimes around the world,
resulting in convictions of caviar
and ivory smugglers, poachers
of rare animals and dealers of
forbidden “medicinal cures.”
In the process, the lab’s
scientists have developed many
of the advances in the field of
wildlife forensics.
But there were things the
lab couldn’t do, such as
accepting carcasses and
animal parts from overseas and
conducting toxicology work
that involved handling hazardous
materials such as poisons,
pesticides, blood pathogens
and other substances that can
carry diseases.
Now, thanks to a new $15 million
addition, that will change. The
world’s most comprehensive
wildlife forensics lab will truly
be able to serve the world.
The 17,000 square-foot addition
includes a Biological Containment
Area that meets Department
Clark R. Bavin National
Fish and Wildlife Forensics
Laboratory in Ashland, Oregon.
USFWS
4 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
news briefs
Hot Topic
Wildlife Service Web site, at
<www.fws.gov/international/
animals/polarbears>.
Concerns about the status of the
world’s polar bear populations,
driven by such actions as the
International Union for the
Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
Polar Bear Specialist’s Group’s
2005 decision to change the
species’ conservation status from
“Low Risk” to “Vulnerable” and
the Service’s January 2007
proposal to list the polar bear
worldwide as “threatened” under
the ESA, have increased in recent
years in the face of observed and
predicted changes in the extent
and seasonal duration of sea ice.
These and other concerns stem
from the impacts of changing
world climate patterns, which
are especially visible in the
arctic regions.
The five nations participating
in the meeting are also
signatories to the landmark 1973
Agreement for the Conservation
of Polar Bears. That agreement
(which the IUCN’s Polar Bear
Specialist Group helped
champion) called for the member
nations to coordinate research
efforts, share information,
cooperate on the management of
migrating polar bear populations,
and continue to consult with one
another for the purpose of
providing increased protection
for the world’s populations of this
emblematic marine mammal.
In the spirit of the agreement,
Hall hopes this will be the first
of a series of annual meetings,
either by teleconference or
face-to face, the latter to rotate
The 95-degree heat at the
Service’s National Conservation
Training Center in West Virginia
provided a strange setting for a
meeting to discuss international
polar bear conservation.
Representatives from the five
“range states” (those nations that
host populations of polar bears;
the U.S., Canada, Norway,
Greenland, and Russia), most of
whom were more accustomed to
northerly climates, soldiered on
through the heat with good
humor. More than one, however,
was heard to compare the
beautiful Shepherdstown
outdoors to the inside of a sauna.
The delegates were gathered at
NCTC to discuss the management
and conservation of polar bears
across the Arctic region. The
United States delegation, lead by
Director H. Dale Hall (and
including representation from
Service, USGS, the Department
of State, the Alaska Nanuuq
Commission, and the State of
Alaska) was joined by similar
groups representing the other
four range states.
The attendees focused their
discussions on such pivotal
issues as sport harvest,
subsistence harvest, import/
export of polar bear parts and
products, polar bear research
and monitoring, and bear-human
interactions. Although not
intended to develop or change
policy, the meeting was intended
to serve as a starting point, and to
initiate information exchanges
leading to enhanced polar bear
conservation in all of these Arctic
nations. Reports presented by
countries during the meeting are
available on the Fish and
among the range-state nations.
Such gatherings would bring
together representatives who
serve at the directorate level of
their countries’ conservation
agencies, and provide a
companion structure to the IUCN
Polar Bear Specialist Group,
which is a group of scientists that
meets every three to five years.
The new series of range-state
directorate-level meetings
would serve as an international
forum able to take the findings
and recommendations of the
Specialist Group’s biologists and
translate them into coordinated
actions for the benefit of polar
bears worldwide.
“Each of the countries shares
the goal of ensuring healthy
polar bear populations for
future generations. This
meeting enabled experts and
policymakers to come together
and share ideas and I’m
extremely pleased at the
progress we made,” Hall said.
Bruce Woods, Media Relations
Chief, Anchorage, Alaska
Polar bear female with young.
Susanne Miller / USFWS
Delegates from the five polar-bear “range states” gathered at
NCTC in June to discuss cooperation in polar-bear conservation.
Bruce Woods / USFWS
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 5
managers typically have adopted
a confine-and-contain strategy
on the refuge using a combination
of ground and aerial suppression
tactics to keep fire from
spreading outside the swamp.
One of the endangered species
most at risk from the fire was the
Red-cockaded woodpecker,
which nests in upland areas.
There was concern the fires
might have damaged or destroyed
colonies of cavity trees used by
the birds; however, Refuge
biologists Dean Easton and Sara
Aicher inspected the colony sites
and discovered no evidence of
red-cockaded woodpecker
mortality. In fact, they found
ample evidence of post-fire
woodpecker activity. “We
discovered that some of the
birds re-nested after the fire.”
Easton said. “These are hardy
woodpeckers, which gives us
hope for their continued survival.”
The largest fire in refuge history
will benefit the swamp for
decades to come, Gillette said.
“Fire enhances the ecosystem
and is a primary force of nature
that sustains the diversity and
richness of a wide variety of plant
and animal species,” he said.
“Whether it is fast moving or slow
and creeping, fire in one form or
another makes the Okefenokee a
world-class resource and a
fascinating unit of the National
Wildlife Refuge System.”
Shawn Gillette, Refuge Ranger,
Okefenokee National Wildlife
Refuge, Folkston, Georgia
Okefenokee NWR heals from wildfires
Okefenokee Swamp Featured on New Postage Stamp
for postage for letters between
the U.S. and Mexico or Canada.
Through its support of the
Federal and Junior Duck
Stamp programs, the U.S.
Postal Service is an important
conservation partner of the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service. Sales
of the Federal Duck Stamp
have helped protect more than
5.2 million acres of wetlands for
national wildlife refuges.
The Postal Service is also
an active partner in the
Junior Duck Stamp program.
Each year, more than
30,000 schoolchildren from
kindergarten through twelfth
grade participate in the Junior
Duck Stamp program. Through
this unique program, kids learn
not just about ducks — but
also learn about conservation,
ecology, wetlands, waterfowl,
and more.
Joshua Winchell, Public Affairs,
Washington, DC
The most recent addition to the
Scenic American Landscapes
postage stamp series featuring
Okefenokee Swamp was
unveiled June 1 at the NAPEX
2007 stamp exhibition in
Northern Virginia.
This stamp depicts the still
water, cypress trees and yellow
cow-lilies of the Okefenokee
Swamp in southeastern Georgia
and northeast Florida, an image
that contrasted sharply with the
wildfires that raged this summer
on the Okefenokee National
Wildlife Refuge. Established in
1937, the refuge protects 402,000
acres of the 438,000 swamp.
The photograph on the stamp
was taken by José Azel. This
new $.69 First Class Mail
International stamp can be used
As of mid September, remnants of
wildfires that consumed about
85 percent of the 403,000-acre
Okefenokee National Wildlife
Refuge continued to smolder.
Refuge Ranger Shawn Gillette
said while no active flames are
present, some hot spots exist in
the thick layers of peat moss, and
it will take at least a two-foot rise
in the water table to extinguish
them. Because the hot spots are
contained in an isolated area,
Gillette said most of the
world-famous wildlife refuge
has reopened and visitors are
slowly returning.
“Visitation is starting to
increase,” he said, adding that
visitors are seeing more wildlife
than normal because the fires
have removed the thick
underbrush, and animals such
as black bear, bobcat, and deer
can now be better observed.
The Big Turnaround Complex of
wildfires spread into the refuge’s
native longleaf pine habitat,
which supports many endangered
and threatened species. Despite
the fire, Gillette said the majority
of the forested upland resources
were not significantly damaged
because of the aggressive and
successful prescribed fire
management program used by
the refuge to promote this
ecosystem.
Decades of experience have
demonstrated that wildfire cannot
be fought successfully inside
the Okefenokee Swamp. The
swamp’s sheer size and its
mosaic of habitat types render
traditional ground suppression
efforts impractical. Incident
Shawn Gillete / USFWS
Biologist Aicher monitors longleaf pine habitat at the refuge.
6 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
Internet Sleuths
news briefs
It’s true, said U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service Special Agent Ed
Newcomer, the Internet has made
wildlife crime easier — and easier
to hide. But the anonymity of
the online world has also
made it easier for wildlife law
enforcement agents to pose
as potential customers and to
catch people.
“What works for criminals also
works for us,” said Newcomer.
“The Internet provides anonymity
for everyone, and when we go
online, the people we’re after
have no idea who we are.”
Wildlife crime is a huge growth
industry, grown larger still by the
Internet. Most experts believe
that the global illegal wildlife
trade measures in the billions of
dollars, annually. Profits in this
illicit market are so huge that law
enforcement officers routinely
note that the black market in
wildlife is now the second largest
in the world, ranking only behind
the trade in illegal drugs. (In the
mid-1990s, an ounce of rhino horn
sold in Yemen for about $1,687 per
ounce, according to the World
Wildlife Fund — making it more
valuable than gold, which has a
current price of $667 per ounce).
Animals — including everything
from insects to bizarre objects
like footstools made from
elephant feet — have always
had aficionados in the more
developed Western countries.
The nations that are most likely
to have the most vigorous
On their first day at the hatchery,
agents collected the remains of
more than 200 heron carcasses in
various states of decay hanging
from trees and on the ground.
Under a dead pine tree, agents
found piles of bird bones.
They sent several heron
carcasses to the National Fish
and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory
in Ashland, Oregon where
scientists determined the cause
of death to be gunshot.
Resuming surveillance in the
early spring, agents collected
more heron and osprey
carcasses. They also found a
freshly killed immature bald eagle
under the dead pine tree.
Agents arrested Zak and Lloyd
and searched the hatchery,
seizing two rifles. As a condition
of their release, the court
ordered Zak to surrender 118
firearms and Lloyd to surrender
seven firearms.
Private Hatchery
Owner Sentenced
for Killing Birds
The owner of a private western
Massachusetts hatchery found
guilty of violating both the
Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA)
and the Bald and Golden Eagle
Protection Act for killing an
eagle and hundreds of other
birds has been sentenced to
six months in a halfway house
and five years probation with
no contact with weapons.
Michael Zak also must pay a
$65,000 fine, which will go to
the North American Wetlands
Restoration Fund.
In addition to shooting an
immature bald eagle, Zak also
killed hundreds of great blue
herons and ospreys over the
course of nearly 30 years.
The birds were feeding on
trout in the hatchery’s
unprotected raceways.
Northeast Region special agents,
led by case agent Tom Ricardi,
investigated Mohawk Trout
Hatchery in the fall of 2005 and
the spring of 2006 based on
a tip from Massachusetts
Environmental Police. Agents
conducted more than 30 days and
hundreds of hours of surveillance
from the woods surrounding the
Sunderland, Massachusetts
hatchery. Agents videotaped
Zak shooting at a heron and
Zak’s son-in-law Timothy Lloyd
shooting and killing an osprey.
They also observed Zak shooting
and killing a heron.
USFWS
In all, agents collected carcasses
of nearly 300 herons, 15 ospreys,
one red-tailed hawk and one
crow. For killing herons and
ospreys, the pair each pleaded
guilty to two Migratory Bird
Treaty Act violations and one
count of conspiracy, but Zak
requested a trial on the charges
of killing a bald eagle.
In April, following a six-day
bench trial, U.S. District Court
Judge Michael Ponsor found
Zak guilty of violating both the
MBTA and the Bald and Golden
Eagle Protection Act for killing
the eagle.
Lloyd was fined $1,500 and must
serve two years probation and
perform 200 hours of community
service.
Diana Weaver, External Affairs,
Hadley, Massachusetts
A Service special agent examines carcasses of an immature bald
eagle and an osprey killed on private hatchery property during
an investigation of bird shootings.
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 7
take a nature hike, or learn how
to become year-round
birdwatchers.
Web site visitors can use a site
locator to find places throughout
the Chicago Wilderness system
to take their kids, along with a list
teacher resources and the latest
news on current and upcoming
events and activities to get
children outside. The program’s
ultimate goal is fostering
generations of children who care
enough about nature to protect it.
conservation movements also Windy City Wilderness
have citizens with the most
disposable income. “That’s the
engine that really drives this
train,” said Newcomer.
The drive that pushes people to
buy such things as bird-eating
spiders, giant African scorpions,
poisonous snakes, macabre
furniture and other ornaments
made from animal parts is, said
Newcomer, as simple as the
desire to want something that
nobody else has. The buyers are
frequently people in upper
income levels who simply
seem to be taken by a novelty
of the moment. The crime is
compounded when the new
owners of live exotic creatures
become bored — and decide to
dump them in the wild. That has
helped place Florida at the top
of the list of states with invasive
species. California, where
Newcomer is based, has
its share.
How much illegal wildlife is
available on the Internet?
Newcomer said it’s difficult to
know; there is no authoritative,
dependable research. But as
someone who spends time
chasing Internet crime, he’s
confident the numbers run to
the thousands.
Newcomer thrives on the
challenge; he relishes telling the
story about how he and his
colleagues nabbed a man in
Los Angeles not long ago who
billed himself as “the world’s
most wanted butterfly smuggler.”
He sold Newcomer $14,000 worth
of protected butterflies and would
have sold him $300,000 worth,
if Newcomer had had the cash.
The smuggler is serving a two-year
sentence in federal prison.
The agents’ undercover work is
as much a battle of wits as
anything else; they must change
their tactics often — to fit the
changing tactics of the people
they are after.
Newcomer, who earned a law
degree before deciding he
wanted to be a wildlife agent,
isn’t discouraged. “Everything I
work for is incapable of dialing
9-1-1,” said Newcomer. “
Wildlife is resilient, but it’s not
inexhaustible. You worry about
reaching the end of the line. I
want every illegal wildlife dealer
who is online to think about one
thing: your next customer may be
a Fish and Wildlife Service law
enforcement agent.”
Ken Burton, Public Affairs,
Washington, DC
news briefs
More than 200 Chicago
Wilderness member
organizations, including the
Midwest Region’s Chicago
Ecological Services field office,
are forging a connection
between children and nature
with programs such as camping
trips, nature scavenger hunts
and birding hikes. Beginning
next year, Chicago Wilderness
members will begin offering all-new
programs as part of Leave
No Child Inside, the consortium’s
new effort to get kids outdoors.
The Leave No Child Inside
program kicked off June 16 at
Chicago’s Jackson Park, as
officials from the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, BP America
and the U.S. Forest Service
helped Chicago Wilderness
launch its effort to encourage
youth to explore the outdoors.
“Our nation has a great heritage
of outdoor activity and
stewardship,” said Robyn
Thorson, Midwest Regional
Director, at the kick-off event.
“Because we treasure the link
between people and nature
we’ve added Leave No Child
Inside and similar initiatives to
our agency’s national priorities.”
Leave No Child Inside offers
hundreds of year-round events
in nature accessible to millions
of children throughout the
region, and a Chicago
Wilderness Field Book to
encourage fun and educational
visits to local natural areas. The
Leave No Child Inside Web site
<www.kidsoutside.info> offers a
wealth of information on how to
connect kids and nature through
Chicago Wilderness programs,
lands and activities. Kids can
play “Bat and Moth,” find out
how to raise monarch butterflies,
Chicago Wilderness is a
partnership of more than 200
public and private organizations
working together to protect the
Chicago region’s natural spaces,
help conserve the diversity of
plants and animals, and enrich
local residents’ quality of life.
The partnership forms a natural
network spanning more than
300,000 acres of forests, prairies,
savannas, wetlands, lakes and
other protected open spaces,
in southeastern Wisconsin,
northeastern Illinois,
northwestern Indiana, and
southwestern Michigan.
Georgia Parham, External Affairs,
Bloomington, Indiana
A teen gets close to nature at the
Leave No Child Inside event
at Chicago’s Jackson Park.
USFWS
8 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
service spotlight
For years, Service employees have been connecting children
with the land and with the agency’s conservation mission.
Today those efforts may be more important than ever.
By David Eisenhauer
At four feet six inches, 9-year-old Lexi Monroe isn’t much taller than the clump of
native bunchgrass she is trying to plant. Her knees are sinking in mud and her shovel is
losing its battle with the hard-packed soil, but the freckled fourth grader is steadfastly
determined to get her plant in the ground.
Monroe and 36 of her classmates at
Rockledge Elementary in Bowie,
Maryland, are spending the warm spring
morning installing vegetation in the
school’s backyard “wetland” under the
guidance of Fish and Wildlife Service
biologist Carolyn Kolstad. The knee-high
trench behind the school serves as a
living laboratory where the youngsters
learn how to build habitat for local
wildlife and receive a first-hand lesson
in environmental conservation.
As director of the Chesapeake Bay Field
Office Schoolyard Habitat program,
Kolstad provides a combination of
biological expertise, onsite technical and
design assistance and hands-on training
for teachers and students — all the
necessary components for implementing a
successful student-led restoration project
on school grounds. The students are
involved every step of the way, from
planning and design through grant
writing, planting and community outreach.
To date, the Service has assisted
approximately 150 Maryland schools in
completing wetland, meadow, and forest
projects involving more than 30,000
students. An additional 50,000 to 60,000
students have used the restored habitat
For years, Service employees have taught
children about nature and respect for
natural resources while accomplishing
important wildlife habitat goals. But
today those efforts may be more important
than ever.
Mounting evidence shows an increasing
number of children are becoming
disconnected from nature, preferring to
spend time indoors immersed in a virtual
reality of television, video games, and
I-pods rather than explore the natural
reality outside their front doors. Author
Richard Louv, whose book Last Child in the
Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature
Deficit Disorder chronicles this trend,
argues that increased urbanization,
parental anxiety, residential development
restrictions and structured play have
kept children on a tight leash. This
separation from the natural world can
result in a host of physical and mental
ailments, Louv warns — from childhood
obesity to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder — and erode future support
for conservation.
“If this gap between children and nature
continues to widen,” he asks, “where will
future conservationists come from?”
Sparking a Conservation Ethic
As the nation’s primary conservation
agency, the Service has a significant stake
in answering that question. Alarmed by
Louv’s conclusions and steady declines
in hunting and fishing license sales, the
Service, The Conservation Fund and >>
Lavonda Walton / USFWS back to nature
sites as part of an integrated curriculum
approach. Annually, the program provides
training for hundreds of teachers and
involves thousands of students in projects
on school grounds that create habitat for
wildlife, help to improve water quality and
provide outdoor classrooms where
students can interact with and observe
natural resources daily.
The Schoolyard Habitat program not
only teaches children about natural
systems, Kolstad says, but it also sows
seeds of conservation in their budding
young minds.
“This may be the first time some of these
students have ever planted a plant,” she
says. “The experience can forge a life-long
connection to the natural world.”
These kinds of lessons are taking place
at refuges, hatcheries, and Service field
stations across the country — from the
“Kids in the Creek” program, where high
schoolers in Chelan County, Washington,
assess stream health by identifying
aquatic insects to the Prairie Wetlands
Learning Center in Fergus Falls,
Minnesota, where students spend a
semester studying traditional subjects
in an outdoor learning environment.
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 9
Below: Service biologist Carolyn Kolstad, director of the Chesapeake Bay Field Office’s
Schoolyard Habitat program (here with students from Rockledge Elementary in
Maryland) explains thecacies of wetland plant plugs.
It’s gratifying to
know the passion
I have for the
outdoors is being
passed to the
next generation —
not because I tell
them they should
have this passion,
but because they
have been given
the opportunity
to discover it
on their own.”
Carolyn Kolstad
10 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
“With big issues like climate change
impacting our conservation mission, we
will need every American to become part
of the solution. Engaging children in our
conservation and restoration
efforts — from planting a tree to banding
a duck — gives them a sense of connection
to the natural world and personal
empowerment that they can make a
difference,” Lemon said. “Whether they
grow to be a biologist, a banker or a
mechanic, we will need them to be aware
and care about the natural world. That
starts with connecting them with nature
when they are young. When you see the
light in a child’s eyes when they come in
contact with a wild animal, you know that
you have kindled a flame in their soul.”
Making the Connections
As this issue of Fish & Wildlife News
shows, the Service hasn’t been sitting on
the sidelines when it comes to connecting
children with nature. Dozens of hands-on
conservation projects help restore
habitat and wildlife species and teach
children outdoor and scientific skills.
Service employees also regularly give
presentations at schools, provide
expertise on field trips, conduct training
for teachers, participate in summer
camps, and help develop curricula and
lesson plans that deal with natural
resource issues.
The Refuge System’s nearly 100 million
acres provide plentiful opportunities to
reconnect children and family with the
outdoors through the System’s “Big Six”
recreational uses — hunting, fishing,
wildlife observation, nature photography,
environmental education and
interpretation. Nearly 40 million visitors
enjoy refuges each year, and more than
300 refuges annually offer environmental
education programs for some 700,000
students and teachers. Likewise, many
hatcheries also provide excellent
recreational and educational opportunities
for schools and communities and regularly
host events to share the Service’s
conservation message.
Most programs and initiatives are done in
collaboration with a variety of partners,
including watershed groups, scouting
groups, refuge and hatchery friends
(Nature, continued)
Louv organized a national dialogue on
children and nature at the National
Conservation Training Center (NCTC)
in September 2006 to discuss the how to
reconnect a generation of youth with the
natural world — and secure the mental and
physical health benefits that go with it.
About 350 educators, health professionals
and conservationists participated in the
meeting, including Secretary of the
Interior Dirk Kempthorne, Service
Director H. Dale Hall, The Conservation
Fund’s President Larry Selzer, Executive
Director of the North American
Montessori Teachers’ Association
David Kahn and Yale University’s
Stephen Kellert.
“Fishing and just playing around in the
woods was an important part of my
childhood,” Hall says. “Our kids need to
have a chance to tromp through a woodlot
or muck around in a creek. That’s the
foundation of a healthy relationship with
the outdoors and a way to spark a
conservation ethic.”
In January 2007, the Service Directorate
listed connecting people with nature as
one of the agency’s six top conservation
priorities and created a national Children
and Nature Working Group of field and
regional office representatives from each
program to map a course of action for the
future. In December, the working group is
sponsoring a national workshop at NCTC
that will give Service employees new skills
and training to help children and families
develop strong life-long connections with
the natural world.
NCTC Director Rick Lemon, who leads
the Service’s Children and Nature
Executive Team, says the agency —
with its extensive land base and passionate
and knowledgeable employees — is well
positioned to help children reconnect
with nature. But while the Service
already provides public use
opportunities — ranging from hunting,
fishing, observing and photographing
wildlife, or simply exploring and
discovering connections to nature on
refuges — Lemon says an “even greater
and more focused effort is needed.”
service spotlight
groups, volunteers and junior naturalist
programs. The Service also regularly
teams up with national conservation
organizations such as Audubon, the
Recreational Boating and Fishing
Foundation, the National Wildlife
Federation and the National Fish and
Wildlife Foundation.
Lemon says he is encouraged by the wide
range of Service programs that connect
children with nature, but suggests the
agency needs to integrate existing and
new programs with its five other top
conservation priorities (National
Wildlife Refuge System, endangered
and threatened species, landscape
conservation, aquatic species, and
migratory birds) seek nontraditional
partners, incorporate new technologies to
reach kids and speak with one voice. The
Service’s children and nature initiative
will include:
n Develop a consistent message
and materials to raise awareness
within the Service and externally about
the importance of connecting children
to nature.
n Identify opportunities within each region
to connect children with nature. These will
be either new efforts or a refocusing of
existing efforts that better target children.
n Reach out to urban environments and/or
with traditionally underserved audiences.
n Identify national campaigns or develop
one Service-wide campaign to connect
children to nature.
Steve Hillebrand / USFWS
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 11
service spotlight
Links to the Outdoors
Here is a sampling of Web links for Service programs that
connect children with nature. This is not an exhaustive list
but demonstrates a range of activities designed to get kids
outside and teach them the importance of conservation.
Environmental Education
<www.fws.gov/educators/students.html>
<www.fws.gov/tennesseerefuge/kids corner.html>
<www.fws.gov/sacramento/ed.htm>
<www.fws.gov/nwi/educator.htm>
<www.fws.gov/chesapeakebay/schoolyd.htm>
<alaska.fws.gov/external/education/curricula.htm>
<www.fws.gov/midwest/pwlc/aboutus.html>
<alaska.fws.gov/external/education/camps.htm>
Endangered Species
<www.fws.gov/endangered/kids>
Recreation
<www.fws.gov/leavenworth/kidsfishingfun.htm>
<www.fws.gov/midwest/fisheries/kidspage.htm>
n Develop a Web site to provide a one-stop
source of readily accessible information,
outreach materials, curricula and lesson
plans and a community of practice where
practitioners can interact in posting
best practices, success stories, questions
and issues.
n Analyze existing training courses and
make adjustments and/or create new
courses to build competency in Service
employees to connect children with nature.
n Work with traditional and nontraditional
partners such as the healthcare
community, educators, technology and
medical companies to link efforts to get
children outside into nature.
“The core mission of the Service has not
changed,” Lemon says. “However,
stressing the wellness benefits from
connecting with nature in our outreach
message is a paradigm shift for the
Service; one that will surely reap
rewards in terms of increased advocacy
and conservation.”
Discovering the Passion
For Carolyn Kolstad, connecting children
with the outdoors is second nature.
She sits on the ground behind Rockledge
Elementary, encircled by a gaggle of
young onlookers as she explains the
intricacies of wetland plant plugs.
Kolstad describes the different plant
characteristics — roots, leaves, and in
some cases, flowers — and explains that
wetland plants have a unique ability to
live under water. Her words are sinking in.
“The Chesapeake Bay is a really good
resource,” says student Lisa Chen, 8, as
she carefully pats the soil around tiny
vegetation that will soon be submerged.
“The Bay gives you food and powers
the city.”
“Nitrogen and phosphorus makes
the fish die in the Chesapeake Bay,”
pipes in 10-year-old Taylor Peterson.
“A wetland is a natural filter. It gets
out all the chemicals.”
Kolstad’s duties as a teacher extend to her
role as a member of the Service’s Children
and Nature Working Group and her life as
a working mother. She says she spends
most of her “free time” with her 2-year-old
son playing outside and exploring the
universe of living things in her own
backyard. For her, connecting children
with nature isn’t a job; it’s a labor of love.
“The Service’s children and nature
initiative is important to me because I can
see the connection kids are making with
the outdoors,” Kolstad says. “I see it in
the eyes of children I’ve been fortunate
to meet in my experience at work, and
I see it in my own child’s eyes. It’s
gratifying to know the passion I have for
the outdoors is being passed to the next
generation — not because I tell them they
should have this passion, but because
they have been given the opportunity to
discover it on their own.”
For more information about the Service’s
children and nature initiative, visit
<www.fws.gov/children> or e-mail Janet
Ady, Chief, Division of Education Outreach
at the National Conservation Training
Center, at <janet_ady@fws.gov>
David Eisenhauer is a public affairs specialist
in Washington, DC. Additional reporting by
Claire Markgraf; Cathy Rezabeck, outreach
coordinator in Anchorage, Alaska; and Janet
Ady, Chief, Division of Education Outreach
at the National Conservation Training Center
in Shepherdstown, West Virginia.
Refuges
<www.fws.gov/blackwater/kidpage.html>
<www.fws.gov/ridgefieldrefuges/adventure/index.htm>
<www.fws.gov/rockymountainarsenal/kids/kids.htm>
<www.fws.gov/refuges/profiles/recEdMore.cfm?ID=33670>
<www.fws.gov/northeast/chinco/kids.htm>
<www.fws.gov/northeast/primehook/kids corner.html>
<www.fws.gov/saintmarks/education.html>
<www.fws.gov/northeast/patuxent/events.html>
<alaska.fws.gov/internettv/nwrtv/tetlintv/kids.htm>
Fish Hatcheries
<www.fws.gov/leavenworth/kc.htm>
<www.fws.gov/dalehollow>
Migratory Birds
<66.241.214.202/index.cfm>
<alaska.fws.gov/external/education/calendar.htm>
<www.fws.gov/duckstamps/junior/junior.htm>
<www.fws.gov/birds/urbantreaty.html>
<www.fws.gov/birds/imbd.html>
12 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
When Kathy Jacobson was growing up in California, she roamed Wildwood Regional
Park. “The defining moments in my life,” she recalls, “were watching a tarantula hawk
(a type of wasp) preying on a tarantula to use its body as a nesting site for her eggs.
I also loved walking through the park’s dry canyon for hours and seeing Chumash
Indian pictographs on its walls. They lent an air of magical human habitation and deep
rootedness in the land.”
Path to Discovery
Kathy Jacobson and Janet Strong
didn’t just help restore a mile of
riparian area on one of the biggest
salmon-bearing rivers in Washington;
they blazed a trail for lifelong learners.
Story by Taylor Pittman
Photos by Kathy Jacobson
Today Jacobson directs the Chehalis
Basin Educational Consortium (CBEC),
a partnership composed of Educational
Service District 113, the Washington State
Departments of Ecology and Fish and
Wildlife, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
several school districts, Grays Harbor
College, the Chehalis River Land Trust and
Council. The primary purpose of CBEC
is to support the Chehalis watershed with
environmental education that meets the
state’s learning goals while addressing
issues in the watershed.
Jacobson and Janet Strong, Director of the
Chehalis River Bain Land Trust, were
instrumental in getting Discovery Trail on
the ground. The nature trail was built to
help people of all ages learn the importance
and value of the complex interrelationships
between the land, the Chehalis River and
the people who have inhabited the region
for decades.
The trail is the result of a partnership
between the City of Centralia and the
Chehalis River Basin Land Trust — a
collaboration built on a mutual desire to
protect wild salmon and to provide support
to the riverbanks from flooding by
planting thousands of native trees and
shrubs along the river. The 1.5-mile long
trail allows visitors to see a river-riparian
ecosystem in action: bald eagles nesting,
king fishers darting over the river in
search of fish, a jumping salmon. Each
trail station examines a different aspect of
a working biological system.
When Jacobson’s CBEC classes got
involved, science teachers expanded the
experiential education program from
students gathering data to planting trees,
producing a nature guide and writing
poetry about their experiences.
The Chehalis River.
The Discovery
Trail was built
to help people
of all ages learn
the importance
and value of
the complex
interrelationships
between the land,
the Chehalis River
and the people who
have inhabited the
region for decades.
Jacobson says the students’ “passion for
learning is obvious.”
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 13
“I learned to teach people to love the
earth and not to change the environment
for our needs.”
“If you live farther away from the harbor,
your pollution will take longer to get there,
but it will still get there.”
These lessons come from being outdoors,
up to their armpits in water, dirt and
trees. Jacobson and Strong didn’t just
help restore a mile of riparian area on
one of the biggest salmon-bearing rivers
in Washington; they blazed a trail for
themselves and others in becoming
lifelong learners and good citizens of
the land.
Taylor Pittman is an Information and
Education Specialist for the Western
Washington Fish and Wildlife Office in
Lacey, Washington
One teacher said, “This was the chance for
the kids to see first hand how what we
learn in school applies to the real world.”
“The students’ passion for learning is
obvious,” Jacobson says. “When students
participate in a real activity with real
consequences, the learning objectives are
being met and I never hear, ‘I’m bored.’”
Strong adds, “It is so rewarding to watch
the kids working with wheelbarrows,
shovels, their hands — they are so proud.
They’d come back with friends to take
walks. There’s no doubt in me that these
kids get a lot out of hands-on work.”
At year’s end, the Chehalis Student
Congress was held and students from all
over the watershed came together to share
and compare their data, participate in
workshops given by resource professionals
and view the art created. When asked
about the most important thing they
learned, students responded:
“I learned to take care of and watch what
we put in the rivers.”
By The Numbers
The Discovery Trail
Location Centralia, Washington
Length 1 mile
7,000 trees planted from 2003-06
22 tree species planted in the
last three years
700 participating students
20 participating teachers
100 participating parents
2,700 square miles of watershed
Two students record their observations.
14 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
A Prescription for Healthy
And besides, many kids will tell you they
don’t want to go outside. Why would they
choose the challenges of the outdoors
(“That’s boring mom!”) when they can be
easily entertained by TV, video games and
the internet?
But our highly structured lives, lived
primarily indoors, are not good for our
children’s health. Today we are raising
a generation of children who have lost
their connection with the outdoors.
It is a crisis that has become known as
“nature-deficit disorder.”
The result? In his book Last Child in the
Woods: Saving Our Children From
Nature Deficit Disorder, Richard Louv
shows that this disconnect may play a big
role in increased rates of obesity, Attention
Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD),
depression and stress in our children.
But today’s children will have very
different childhood memories.
Today, we lead busy and highly structured
lives. We get off of work and shuttle our
children to sports practice and music
lessons. Then we rush home in time to
feed them, help them finish homework and
get them into bed. This leaves them with
no unscheduled time.
When we do have some down time, most
of parents today don’t feel comfortable
letting our kids roam free through the
neighborhood without supervision. In fact,
experts estimate that a child’s range for
roaming and wandering today is one-ninth
of what ours was.
For many parents, some of our best childhood memories are of the outdoors. Whether
it was playing neighborhood freeze tag, building a fort in the nearby vacant lot,
splashing around in a creek, or riding our bike to the park, most of us had a lot of fun
playing outside. Our formative years consisted of hours of unstructured, outdoor play.
Getting children outside
is not just fun and games.
Their health may depend on it.
By Kyla Hastie and Shani Howard
Pediatric care providers are particularly
tuned into the problem of reduced time for
unstructured play. They’ve known for a
long time that getting children out and
moving about burns calories, lowering the
risk of childhood obesity. But new research
shows additional benefits of outside play.
A 2006 report from the American
Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) states
that free and unstructured play is
healthy — and in fact essential — for
helping children reach important social,
emotional, and cognitive developmental
milestones. Unstructured play, whether
indoors or outside, helps children manage
stress and become resilient.
Fortunately, “nature deficit disorder” is a
problem parents and communities can
solve. Spurred by the publication of Louv’s
book, a movement referred to as “No
Child Left Inside” is sweeping the nation.
Connecticut has launched a program to
get children and parents out to state parks
and provide more outdoor opportunities.
Flickr / AJ Schroetlin
Flickr / maxwell woods
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 15
Why Do Children Need
Nature and Play?
Research shows that children need to
spend time in nature for physical, mental
and emotional development. Here’s why*:
Nature reduces stress and lowers the risk
of depression. Many studies have shown
that a relationship with nature and animals
lowers blood pressure, reduces stress,
and wards off depression in both children
and adults.
Children work through issues by playing
outdoors. When something is troubling
you, how many of us have found quiet and
solitude in the outdoors? Nature has a
restorative, spiritual quality that enables
children (and adults) to think more clearly.
Outdoor experiences may combat Attention
Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
Children with ADHD are restless, and have
trouble paying attention, listening, following
directions, and focusing on tasks. Studies
have found that TV may increase a child’s
likelihood of developing concentration
problems, but that nature experiences may
improve a child’s ability to listen and focus.
Children who spend more time outdoors
may reduce their risk of obesity and other
physical health problems. 40 percent of
five- to eight-year-olds suffer cardiac
risk factors such as obesity. Two-thirds
of American children can’t pass a basic
physical. There is a growing body of
evidence suggesting contact with nature is
as important to children as good nutrition
and adequate sleep.
“Nature smart” children have heightened
sensory skills. Outdoor environments
challenge, excite, and stimulate our
sense (while controlled, indoor electronic
environments tend to drown our senses
with noise and visual stimulation). Outdoor
experiences help develop our kids’ sense
of sight, sound, smell, taste and touch all
at once. Nature-connected kids tend to
pay more attention to the world around
them, often noticing things that others
miss. They also tend to do better on
standardized testing.
Outdoor experiences foster more creativity.
Natural spaces stimulate children’s limitless
imaginations. Children who connect with
nature may be more inventive and better
problem solvers due to the hands-on
learning that the outdoors provides.
Learn more about nature-deficit disorder
and the AP’s study on the importance
of play at:
<www.cnaturenet.org>
<greenhour.blogspot.com>
<www.aap.org/pressroom/play-public.htm>
Many school districts are restoring
previous cuts in outdoor playtime and
investing in outdoor classrooms where
children can learn through direct contact
with nature. And in some communities,
developers are rethinking how they build
neighborhoods to include areas where
children can play safely.
Health care providers are also addressing
this problem. As a result of the AAP
report on children and play, health care
providers have been given new guidelines
for patients and parents, which include
recommending that all children be
afforded ample, unscheduled, independent,
non-screen time to be creative, to reflect,
and to decompress. Health care providers
are also encouraged to be advocates for
developing safe spaces for children to play.
As Louv says, “Healing the broken bonds
between our young and nature is in
everyone’s self-interest, not only because
aesthetics or justice demands it, but also
because our mental, physical and spiritual
health depend upon it.”
Time is one of the most valuable resources,
so reserve some of it for your kids to get
outside and play. It’s not just for fun.
Their health depends on it.
This article was adapted from one that
appeared in the March/April 2007 issue of
Athens Parent magazine. Kyla Hastie is an
outreach and partnerships coordinator
for the Service’s Southeast Regional Office
in Atlanta. Shani Howard is a nurse
practitioner at Oconee Pediatric Associates
in Watkinsville, Georgia.
terri jacobson / usfws
16 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
Class is in session at the Upper
Mississippi River National
Wildlife and Fish Refuge.
By Cindy Samples
A Winona State
University
pre-service teacher
shows students
how to identify
macroinvertebrates.
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 17
A crew of fifth graders climbs aboard the River Explorer and soon the boat is filled
with excitement. Children on the top deck try out binoculars and learn where the
“head” is located (they love the captain’s “sailor talk”). One young boy named Jordan
asks if I am a “cop” and whether he can keep the pair of binoculars I hand him.
Today 30 students, parents, teachers,
pre-service teachers from Winona State
University have joined staff from the
Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife
and Fish Refuge to explore the refuge by
water. Captain Dick Karnath, a veteran
riverboat pilot who goes by the name
“Captain Kutch,” steers the boat away
from the dock and we are underway.
“How many of you have ever been on the
river?” I ask. Most hands go up. “How
many of you have ever been on the Upper
Mississippi River National Wildlife and
Fish Refuge?” Only a few hands go up.
Then I ask, “What is a refuge?” Young
Jordan replies that it is a “place where
animals are protected.” I point to a white
refuge sign and explain that on this refuge
people can hunt, fish, hike, boat, and watch
wildlife — so refuges are for people, too.
In collaboration with refuge staff,
Winona State University developed this
interdisciplinary program to use the river
refuge as a natural “classroom.” The River
Explorer is the conduit by which students
can explore a myriad of subjects from
poetry to sociology.
“Through our summer workshops,
teachers learn first-hand about the refuge
and then they get to bring their students
on a river field trip once school is in
session,” said WSU Chemistry Professor
Jeanne Franz. “That’s a great way to
connect the teachers and students with
this refuge. Surveys from the workshop
indicate that the teachers and student
teachers are much more likely to
incorporate the Refuge into their
curriculum as a result of traveling
through the refuge with a refuge staff
member onboard.”
I instruct the crew to view an eagle nest
with their binoculars. One student
exclaims, “I see two heads!” Another
says, “Look there’s something in the
water is that a beaver?” “It’s a river rat!
It’s a muskrat.”
Noah, one of the Winona State
University pre-service teachers, shows
the students how to use their “Discovery
Scopes” and teaches them how to
identify macroinvertebrates. “Those
guys are really important to the animals
on the river,” he says. “Fish eat them,
ducks eat them, and you’re going to
discover what they look like. They are
tiny so you need the Scopes to see and
identify them. Let’s go overboard.”
The children comb the river’s edge
scooping up water. Soon there are shouts
of, “Oh my goodness, it’s moving, I found
a bug! Look there’s a worm thingy in
here! Ranger Cindy what is this?
I got a baby dragonfly in here! Look at
mine — it’s a baby mosquito!”
All too soon the children are back on the
boat as we motor upriver to the lunch
stop and canoe launch. The water is cold
today, so they will stay in their canoes
and avoid the temptation to swim.
After a day on the river refuge, the River
Explorer docks at Winona, Minnesota
and the children file off one by one.
Jordan, the young boy who asked if
I was a cop looks up at me and says,
“That was awesome.”
WSU sociology professor Todd Paddock
says the students’ day on the river
reinforces their connection to nature and
helps the understand the importance of
conserving the Upper Mississippi’s
natural treasures.
“I had a class of 28 students sign up for
my sociology class. When I told them the
class included a weekend trip on the river
refuge and that they needed to be ready to
get wet and muddy, the class size dropped
to nine,” Paddock says. “It just shows why
I need to get them out on the river. Next
time I won’t say anything about water or
mud. I truly believe that once they get
their feet wet it will create a connection
and they’ll begin caring about and for the
river refuge.”
Cindy Samples is a Refuge Ranger at
Upper Mississippi River National
Wildlife and Fish Refuge
Cindy Samples / USFWS
flickr / daisy baxter Cindy Samples / USFWS
18 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
By Jennifer Anderson
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 19
One morning in early June, a group of about 10 Girl Scouts in rubber boots and
waders revisited a wetland area they helped create a year earlier through a
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service partnership.
Each year, this innovative partnership is encouraging
more than 35,000 Girl Scouts to work with agencies to identify
conservation and outdoor projects in their communities.
provide them with opportunities to restore
native habitats, expose them to careers in
the outdoors and help them understand
their roles as caretakers of the land.
The Shawnee Council’s Camp White Rock
project was launched in 2004 when the
Service agreed to help restore land the
Girl Scouts use for educational purposes.
The Council applied for a $3,000 Linking
Girls to the Land grant, funded by the
Girl Scouts’ Elliott Wildlife Values Project,
U.S. Forest Service, EPA and Fish and
Wildlife Service, making the Shawnee
proposal among 20 that year to receive
the competitive grant. Jodi Schwarzer,
national manager of Linking Girls to the
Land for the Girl Scouts, explained that
the Council’s proposal appealed at a
national level because it carried an
educational component likely to result
in the partnership lasting beyond the
scope of the immediate project.
Partners for Fish and Wildlife State
Coordinator John Schmidt from the West
Virginia Field Office, joined by members
of the state Department of Natural
Resources, visited the site and developed a
preliminary design for the creation of the
wetland. An archaeologist with the U.S.
Department of Agriculture in Morgantown
determined the land contained nothing of
archaeological significance, and in April
2006, the U.S. Corps of Engineers issued
a Clean Water Act permit for the wetland
reconstruction, clearing the way for the
project to proceed. >>
The girls, all middle- and high-school
aged, were taking inventory of the
native grasses and invasive species
growing in the wetland, built on their 140-
acre Camp White Rock outdoor classroom
in Hampshire County, West Virginia. An
abundance of dragonflies, deer, raccoons,
frogs and other creatures once scarce in
the area are now drawn to the marsh. “If
we expose children to the beauty of nature,
they will be more inclined to treat the
natural world with respect and work to
protect it,” said Sue Jarvis, chief operating
officer for the Girl Scouts of Shawnee
Council in West Virginia.
The partnership between the Shawnee
Council and the Service is not unique.
Across America, Girl Scout councils are
joining together with Service biologists to
restore nature. They are planting native
grasses, pulling invasive weeds, studying
wetland habitats and planning
conservation projects on their privately
owned and public lands.
Begun in 1995 between the Girl Scouts of
the USA and several federal agencies
including the Fish and Wildlife Service,
Environmental Protection Agency and
Bureau of Land Management, the Linking
Girls to the Land partnership encourages
more than 35,000 Girl Scouts each year
to work with agencies to identify
conservation and outdoor projects in their
communities. The partnerships not only
enhance Girl Scout leadership skills and
their appreciation for nature but also
Girl Scouts search for macroinvertebrates
at Ditch Creek in the Grand Teton
National Park, Wyoming.
A cold, wet day at Daubenspeck
Community Nature Park in Indianapolis
doesn’t deter these girls from hauling
mulch and planting trees.
Jodi Stewart Deborah Ellman Schwarzer / Girl Scostu of hte USA
20 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
Prairie Partnership
In Iowa, where 99 percent of the native
prairie land has been lost to development
and agriculture, a Girl Scout-Fish and
Wildlife partnership led to the restoration
of prairie habitat on the 340-acre
Girl Scout Camp Conestoga, near
New Liberty, Iowa.
The project got its start in 2004 when Girl
Scout council staff member Hillary Blevins
approached Kraig McPeek, biologist with
the Rock Island, Illinois Ecological
Field Office, and explained that the Girl
Scouts of Eastern Iowa and Western
Illinois had already restored two plots
totaling 11 acres and were interested in
restoring a third.
McPeek’s office is experienced in working
with both private landowners and
nonprofit organizations and was eager to
help the Girl Scouts restore some of their
property, both for educational purposes
and to protect wildlife. The partnership
received not only a $2,500 Linking Girls
to the Land grant but also obtained an
$1,800 grant through the Partners for
Fish and Wildlife program, to purchase
native prairie seed. McPeek described the
six-acre plot as “marginal old pasture”
running along a hillside and overrun with
poison ivy and other invasive grasses,
trees and shrubs.
A contractor already on-site repairing
roads for the Girl Scouts cleared the land
and seeded it with a mix of 50 different
grass and flower species, all native
to Iowa. Unlike the two other plots
previously restored as either all grasses
or all flowers, the six-acre plot offers a
mix, which should add to the girls’
understandings of native vegetation
and the different species they attract,
McPeek said.
Although construction is complete, this
partnership has also not ended. Service
biologists are teaching the Girl Scouts
about how fire and other wildlife
management techniques are used to care
for the prairie, and plans are underway to
expand the curriculum to include one-day
seminars on identifying butterflies or
other prairie-related topics hosted by
Fish and Wildlife Service biologists.
Within two months, heavy equipment
operators from Canaan Valley National
Wildlife Refuge and the West Virginia
Field Office, in just one day, completed
construction of a short dike and spillway
to create approximately a half-acre of
wetland within Camp White Rock under
the direction of Al Rizzo, state coordinator
of Partners for Fish and Wildlife in the
Chesapeake Bay Field Office. Fish and
Wildlife Service biologists seeded and
mulched the area, and the water was
allowed to fill in naturally.
“The girls benefit because they are learning
the science behind what these agencies are
doing and developing real connections to their
public lands. This type of hands-on involvement
leads to a genuine and life-long commitment
to care for our planet.”
Jodi Schwarzer, national manager of the Linking Girls to the Land program for the Girl Scouts
The Girl Scouts have been exploring the
wetlands since they were developed and
going out monthly since January, said
Jarvis, of the Shawnee Council. They are
observing wildlife, looking at microscopic
organisms and learning to identify the
native and invasive species.
The partnership already is proving itself
sustainable; establishment of the wetland
led to a $32,600 grant awarded to the
council this past June from the West
Virginia Commission for National and
Community Service. The funds are to be
used to develop outdoor educational
programs on marsh ecosystems.
Future goals include having the Service
teach the girls about wetland habitats and
their importance in the ecosystem.
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 21
Because of the success of the project,
McPeek is confident the partnership will
not only continue but enable his office to
use the Camp Conestoga project as an
example for other landowners and
organizations in Iowa that would like to
pursue habitat restorations.
Just as the land benefits, so do the girls.
“They are learning the science behind
what these agencies are doing and
developing real connections to the public
lands,” stated Schwarzer, Linking Girls to
the Land National Manager. “This type
of hands-on involvement leads to a
genuine and life-long commitment to
care for our planet.”
Jennifer Anderson is a freelance writer
living in Falls Church, Virginia
Going Wild
When lifelong field ecologist Julie
Concannon, an environmental
contaminants team leader for the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service in Portland, Oregon,
became leader of a local Girl Scout troop
in 2005, she couldn’t wait to get the girls
out in nature.
But her expectations crashed when
several of the 11- to 14-year-olds showed
up for a camping and hiking trip along
muddy trails in flip-flops and cotton pants
and with Teddy bears in tow.
“I realized on that first camping trip that
connections to the landscape take time
and are experienced differently by each
girl,” she recalled.
Elaborate outdoors plans gave way to
learning the basics such as how to use
a compass, pack a backpack, cook in a
Dutch oven and keep an adequate supply
of food and water at all times — even in
the city.
Co-leader Cynthia Carlton shows
Zoe Naimo how to use a compass.
The girls will have to decide on the
project — whether it’s pulling invasive
plant species, restoring a riparian area
or countless other possibilities — and the
location. Some projects may be pricier
than others, but all are doable as long as
the girls are motivated and creative in
their fundraising. As Concannon put it:
“Their opportunities are limited only by
their imaginations.”
But are the girls ready to do their part
for the planet? When Concannon asked,
15-year-old Girl Scout Lindsey Carter
replied, “I would do it because it makes
me feel good inside.”
Even the youngest of the troop, 11-year-old
Zoe Naimo, said: “I would do anything to
save nature.”
Jennifer Anderson
After nine months of “basic training,” the
girls asked to go on a “real” camping trip.
To Concannon’s delight, they were ready to
connect with a wild landscape. She decided
to push the girls to the next step, applying
in June for a Linking Girls to the Land grant
to partner with the National Wildlife Refuge
System in the Northwest and Pacific Islands
to restore a part of nature.
Julie Concannon / USFWS Anne S. Fege
A Service biologist teaches Girl Scouts
about insects in their local environment.
22 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
“How much farther do we have to go?”
the girl behind me asks.
“How long do we have to walk?” her friend
chimes in.
“This could be a very long hike,” I think as
I lead 20 third graders along the Painted
Desert Trail at Imperial National Wildlife
Refuge north of Yuma, Arizona. The trail
is just over a mile, and we’ve barely begun.
“We have quite a ways to go,” I tell
the girls.
“Good! Because this is so fun!”
Big cities offer many choices and
opportunities that are unavailable in a
remote town the size of Yuma. Children
from Yuma have no zoo and few museums.
Their connection with nature is limited,
and they may be only vaguely aware of its
significance. They may live in the desert,
but they don’t live the desert.
Imperial National Wildlife Refuge offers
the chance to experience what these
children learn in the classroom. Today we
are awakening their senses to the desert
that surrounds them.
“We’ll look for signs of water,” I told the
hikers before we stepped onto the trail.
But when I asked them what those signs
might be, they merely stared at me.
Senses in the Imperial National Wildlife Refuge
is an oasis of life and learning
for thirsty young minds.
By Betty Mulcahy
Now we stop at a dry wash striated by
occasional water flow. I ask if anyone sees
signs of water. Several point to the cracked
dried mud. “That’s right. And what about
erosion on the hillside? Does anyone know
what erosion means?”
“We’ve discussed this in class,” the teacher
is quick to remind the pupils as they peer
up at the deep grooves, beginning to
connect what they’ve only read or heard
about with what they are now witnessing.
We walk down a wash to a wide, flat space
populated with cactus, creosote, palo
verde, and numerous other plants. As I
cup my hands around a creosote branch,
breathe on it and inhale, I invite the class
to join me. The children surround the bush
and inhale the acrid odor.
“It smells like rain!” several announce.
They know from experience something I
had to learn on my first trip to the desert.
I smile at their discovery. When I ask why
none of the plants have large leaves, they
eagerly recall what they’ve learned at
school. It’s becoming real for them.
One young girl brings me a leaf she has
plucked from a brittlebush. “Why is this
soft?” she asks. The bush will regrow the
leaf, but it has piqued the girl’s curiosity.
She is paying attention to details.
“As we walk, let’s look for holes where
animals live,” I tell the group. Intrigued,
the students locate a hillside riddled with
various sized and shaped burrows.
“There are some tracks!” one declares
after investigating the entrances to these
homes. Increasingly, the children are
honing their observation skills. They begin
seeing signs and details that I miss.
And I begin to understand why people
teach. Igniting excitement and awareness
in these students has augmented my
own senses.
“Now see if you can count the number of
colors in the rocks as we walk,” I say. Soon
we stop again to investigate the different
shades. They come up with “reddish-orange”
and “pinkish-brownish-whitish”
and “purple-maroon” and “green.”
One child comes up with “blue.”
“Blue?” I ask. But then I realize that
some of the dark gray could appear blue.
I’ve learned something.
After climbing a steep incline, we stop
at the highest point of the trail.
“Does anyone see a sign of water in
the distance?” I ask.
Answers of erosion and caked mud
abound. “Look farther,” I insist.
“Way in the distance.”
“It’s green,” one child offers.
Then someone spots the ribbon of blue.
“That’s the Colorado River,” I say. “If you
were a bighorn sheep, that’s where you’d
have to go for a drink. How many of you
would want to travel that far just to
Chuck Mulcahy / USFWS
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 23
Desert
drink?” Most shake their heads. One,
however, offers to walk the six hilly, rocky
miles right now. I admire his enthusiasm.
When we descend again to the wash,
I ask the group to sit on the gravel.
“Close your eyes and listen,” I say. “Each
time you hear a different sound, hold up
a different finger.”
I give the children one minute of silence
with their eyes closed. It must seem an
eternity, but not one makes a sound except
for an occasional foot crunching the little
stones. “Open your eyes,” I say when time
is up. “What did you hear?”
One child heard an insect buzzing in her
ear. Another heard the wind through the
trees. Still another heard an airplane in
the distance. “I heard a lion roar,” one
proclaims. I don’t dispute it. Imaginations
have been sharpened this morning.
We’re coming to the end of the hike, and I
have heard few if any complaints. “I want
to stay here,” one boy says.
“Aren’t you hungry?” his friend asks.
“Yes. But I’d rather stay here than eat.”
I don’t try to hide my satisfaction. Making
a difference in a child’s life, I find, also
makes a difference in mine.
Now the children are continually pointing
out signs of water and animal burrows
and colors in rocks. They are excited with
their discoveries.
When we round one more hill, the parking
lot comes into view. A boy in front of the
line marches toward the bus. “This is the
most funnest field trip I ever been on!” he
declares. “Even better than Sea World!”
I wonder if this child has ever been to Sea
World. Nevertheless, I stop him long
enough to give him a hug. This is one of
the most funnest things I’ve ever done too!
Chattering with new awe, the children
board the bus. I may have awakened their
senses, but they have awakened my sense
of wonder.
Betty Mulcahy is a Volunteer Interpretive
Naturalist at Imperial National Wildlife
Refuge in Yuma, Arizona
Chuck Mulcahy / USFWS
Imperial National Wildlife Refuge offers children the chance to experience what they learn in the classroom.
The author teaches young
conservationists about life in
the desert.
Illustrations by Tim Knepp
Black-footed Ferret
American Alligator
kids coloring page
California Condor
Share this pull-out section
with a child to further his or
her interest in nature.
Polar Bear
Emperor Penguin
Sea Turtle
Gray Wolf
kids coloring page
Bald Eagle
26 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
science
Traditional caches are located all over the
world. But since leaving behind a cache in
federal wildlife refuges is illegal, there’s
another component to geocaching that
entices participants to these wonderful
wildlife areas: Virtual caching.
With a virtual cache, participants use
clues, GPS waypoints and landmarks to
get themselves to a particular spot in the
reserve. Clever virtual caches can include
amazing scenic spots, lesser-known public
trails, key bird watching spots, locations of
natural mineral deposits, or other natural
wonders. It’s low-impact treasure hunting
at its best.
To assist local cachers, rangers at the
Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife
and Fish Refuge in Minnesota created a
special virtual cache with multiple
locations and questions. When cachers
complete the entire circuit, they return to
Treasure Hunting
Geocaching — a new-age combination
of orienteering and hide-and-seek —
gets families around the world out
and hiking together.
By Kathleen M. Reilly
Janell Lovelace’s three-year old son,
Bram, is an experienced treasure hunter.
And we’re not just talking pretend
treasures, either. Bram hikes through
forests and down trails until his parents’
Global Positioning System (GPS) lets his
family know they’re getting close to the
treasure they’re seeking. Once they’re
close enough, Bram rummages among the
fallen leaves and peers into tree stumps,
until — eureka! Hidden treasure!
The Durham, North Carolina family is
part of a growing worldwide trend —
geocaching. This new-age combination of
orienteering and hide-and-seek gets
families around the world out and hiking
together. Here’s how it works: Someone
hides a treasure box (“cache”) and notes
its coordinates — its unique position on the
globe. Then, they post those coordinates
online at <www.geocaching.com, along
with an optional clue. Other geocachers
can then use their own GPS systems to
track down the cache.
It’s not as easy as it sounds, though.
The GPS will only get you so close, and
then it’s up to old-fashioned detective
work to find the cache itself, usually a
sealed rubber container or army ammo
box. Inside, treasure hunters will find
a logbook to sign and date, and an
assortment of trinkets to choose from.
They then replace the loot with a trinket
of their own — small toys, CDs, movies,
books, and such — and carefully hide the
container back in the same place for the
next player to find.
photo collage / fred mcwilson
the headquarters to report back and
collect a reward. Cachers have been
amazed at the wildlife they’ve spotted and
thrilled to discover new trails they’d
previously overlooked.
For families, geocaching is just the ticket
to get outdoors and explore nature —
what kid could resist a treasure hunt? An
added benefit of virtual cache: It helps
kids really look closely at nature’s beauty
as they work the clues and seek out
natural landmarks.
For your first few caches with the kids,
look for caches that are easy to find and
in easy terrain (they’re clearly marked
online). If you’re choosing your
destinations from the online site, read
through the log entries to see if other
people have had a lot of difficulty getting
to the cache. Bushwhacking with young
children can be a quick way to a
frustrating outing.
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 27
Many geocachers keep a backpack just
for geocaching, loaded with what they
need, so they can just grab it and go when
the urge for adventure hits. Stock your
bag with your GPS unit, a local map,
flashlight, bug sprays, pens, small first
aid kit, and binoculars for checking out
the nature scenes.
Geocaching is not only fun, but it’s a great
way to get out and exercise as a family,
too, says Maria Nardini, fitness manager
of the Duke Health and Fitness Center
in North Carolina. “When you’re hiking,
especially in that kind of environment,
there’s going to be a variety of terrain,”
she says. “It’s a variety of ways to
challenge the body. You may be climbing
a steep hill, which is an interval
workout, and then return to flat
ground, where you’re getting a good
cardiovascular benefit.”
One of the best rules of geocaching gives
kids a hands — on way to care for the
environment, too: Cache In, Trash Out.
In an effort to preserve and improve the
natural areas of the world, geocachers are
asked to tread lightly on the land — and
actually help improve it, too — by bringing
along a bag to remove any litter you come
across in your outings. It’s not only
Jamie Harper / USFWS
A Saint Mary’s University (Minnesota)
student shows high schoolers from
Riverway Learning Community Charter
School how to use a GPS unit.
Using their GPS device, two young
geocachers close in on the “treasure.”
Kathleen M. Reilly
Geocaching returns a sense of outdoor
adventure to a world dominated with
indoor entertainment.
Kathleen M. Reilly
For families, geocaching is just the ticket
to get outdoors and explore nature.
What kid can resist a treasure hunt?
helping the environment, but it’s setting
a great example for your children.
“We’ve carried out dozens of bags of
trash from public parks over the past
year,” Lovelace says.
Getting out in search of treasure returns
a sense of outdoor adventure to our world
dominated with indoor entertainment,
and families across the country are
enthusiastically jumping into geocaching.
And it’s helping their families grow closer,
too. “A family that does this kind of
activity together is likely to support each
other in other types of activities, too, and
will continue to do so long-term,” says
Nardini. And that’s one treasure you’ll
always keep close.
Kathleen M. Reilly is a freelance writer in
North Carolina. She and her family are
avid geocachers.
28 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
example, is regularly offered at
Patuxent National Wildlife
Research Refuge. Teachers
leave the workshop with an
interdisciplinary curriculum
guide covering science, math,
social studies, physical
education, environmental,
music, art and education.
Erika Scarborough, education
specialist at John Heinz at
Tinicum National Wildlife Refuge
in Philadelphia, concluded that
training teachers would give
them ownership over the content,
thus better engaging the many
urban students who come to the
refuge. Scarborough offers
“pre-field trip orientations”
one Saturday a month so that
teachers can return with their
students and lead their own
activities.
Heinz Refuge also offers a wide
variety of other courses and
workshops for teachers of all
grade levels throughout the
school year, covering everything
from wetlands, biodiversity,
energy, trees and songbirds.
A nominal fee is charged and
participants earn continuing
education credits.
The workshops build confidence
and knowledge among teachers,
who are often as unfamiliar with
green spaces as their students.
Scarborough remembers one
teacher involved in a hands-on
activity who said she had “never
seen a real live frog.” One student
who came to the refuge said it
was the “first time she ever
planted something that wasn’t in
a paper cup.”
Further west, new professional
development projects for
teachers focus on a single
location or a single species.
The Matagorda Island Teacher
Workshop Cooperative Initiative,
which involves staff and Friends
of Aransas and Matagorda Island
at Aransas National Wildlife
Refuge has created an annual
workshop that shows teachers
an array of learning opportunities
on Matagorda Island.
Twelve teachers attended the
first workshop in November 2006,
sleeping in a bunkhouse on the
island and spending two days
with naturalists from the refuge
and local partner organizations.
They tried their hand at birding,
observing the ecology of beaches
and marshes, stargazing and
photography. Teachers earned
continuing education credits and
received curriculum guides that
enable them to meet Texas public
school requirements to educate
middle and high school students
about coastal resources.
Tonya Stinson, environmental
education specialist at Aransas
National Wildlife Refuge, was
the prime mover behind the
teacher initiative. The Friends
organization provided financial
and administrative support.
Stinson believes it’s important
for successful professional
development initiatives to fill a
need that hasn’t already been met
and take advantage of as many
local partners as possible.
At Sevilleta National Wildlife
Refuge in New Mexico, an effort
to provide educators with
information about the endangered
Mexican gray wolf led to design
of an education outreach
program focused on the wolf. In
2005, several retired teachers
volunteered to help the refuge
create an educator’s guide.
The guide includes activities
for pre-school through twelfth
grade and will eventually be
available online.
In the “Build a Wolf” lesson, for
example, elementary students
learn about wolf adaptations as
they dress up in a costume that
includes large teeth, ears, feet
and a fluffy tail. Middle school
students play a hunting game to
learn about predator/prey
relationships. High school
students become members of a
fictitious “Wolf Reintroduction
Team;” they must decide where
and how to reintroduce Mexican
gray wolves and then defend
their recommendations.
More than 150 guides have been
distributed to educators, from
those who teach in public,
tribal and parochial schools
and those who provide home
schooling. Last year, the refuge’s
wolf outreach program reached
more than 650 students and
100 teachers, according to
Kimberly King-Wrenn, visitor
services professional at Sevilleta
Refuge. “While the Mexican
gray wolves are still searching
to find their place in the
southwest,” says King-Wrenn,
“wolf education has found a
home at Sevilleta Refuge.”
Karen Leggett, NWRS
Communications, Washington, DC
around the service
Heinz Refuge Environmental Education Specialist Erika
Scarborough teaches a Project WILD workshop to local teachers.
They are on the deck of the Cusano Environmental Education
Center, which opened to the public in January 2001.
Bill Buchanan / USFWS
headquarters
Teaching the Teachers
A biology teacher suggests that a
student try working for the Youth
Conservation Corps in the
summer. An elementary school
teacher teaches children to write
poetry on a refuge. Another
conveys math concepts by asking
students to calculate how many
acres need to be planted to feed
migratory birds on a refuge.
Engaging the next generation
means not only encouraging
young people to think of
conservation careers but also
educating them to become
knowledgeable citizens
enthusiastic about conservation.
That often starts with teachers.
Many refuges offer professional
development programs for
teachers. They are often created
by private nonprofit organizations.
Many of these programs are
being correlated to new public
school curriculum standards.
A Project Wild course created
by the nonprofit Council for
Environmental Education, for
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 29
exploring a rocky stretch of the
Potomac River shoreline provided
many opportunities for discovery,
reflection and sharpening photo
skills. Additional nature
experiences and image-making
occurred during a day-long field
trip to Patuxent Research Refuge,
where the campers witnessed
and photographed the refuge’s
conservation work.
Unlike many environmental
education programs where time
outdoors is limited or omitted
entirely, the campers spent most
of their time in nature. And by
having one of their photographic
prints framed and exhibited in a
public forum at NCTC last fall,
each camper could share his or
her view of the outdoors through
the camera lens. Perhaps the
photo camp’s most visible
measure of success is the fact
that half of last year’s participants
signed up for the session
conducted at NCTC this summer.
This summer’s camp session was
expanded to six days. In addition
to the field trip to a national
wildlife refuge, the campers also
visited the National Zoo’s
Conservation and Research
Center in Front Royal, Virginia.
There they learned about the
important conservation work
done by zoos. National
Geographic photographer Steve
Uzzell visited with the kids and
provided tips on nature
photography as a potential
career. NCTC’s Matt Poole and
Bill Wallen, an experienced
nature photographer and
volunteer for the Potomac River
National Wildlife Refuge Complex,
served as the primary instructors.
Because the basic model of the
photo camp is so easily
adaptable, NCTC developed a
video-based case study of the
camp session in July and August.
The case study and other
resources comprised a new “tool
kit” that will be made available to
national wildlife refuges and
other Service field stations that
have an interest in starting their
own local nature photography
programs for kids and their
families.
The success of the Digital Nature
Photography Day Camp supports
the idea that technology can be
used to facilitate meaningful
connections between children
and nature. During a focus group
that was conducted in
conjunction with NCTC’s
conference about children and
nature, one student spoke to the
spirit of the day camp when she
urged adults to “take those
activities which we enjoy...and
move them outside!”
Matt Poole, Conservation
Land Management, National
Conservation Training Center,
Shepherdstown, West Virginia
around the service
Nature Through the
Looking Glass
Television, video games,
computers and other forms of
technology are frequently blamed
for keeping children inside. But
these same technologies can
also open a door to nature for
kids growing up in a digital age.
This premise led to the genesis of
the Digital Nature Photography
Day Camp, an innovative
educational partnership between
the National Conservation
Training Center (NCTC), Potomac
Valley Audubon Society and
Nikon USA.
Eight high school students
participated in the inaugural
session of the camp at NCTC
during summer 2006. The goal of
the five-day camp was to directly
engage children in a variety of
nature-based experiences in the
course of practicing newly
learned photography skills. Live
raptors from Cunningham Falls
State Park in Maryland provided
the opportunity for the students
to practice wildlife photography
“up close and personal.”
Simple, unstructured time spent
investigating a butterfly garden,
wandering NCTC’s trails, and
Fun on the Water
Boating and fishing are great
ways to spend time outdoors,
experience new places, learn
about different types of wildlife
and connect children with
nature — whether at home or in
the classroom.
Formed in 1997 by congressional
action to address a trend in
declining angler and boater
participation, the Recreational
Boating and Fishing Foundation
(RBFF) offers grants for boating
and fishing programs, free
educational materials and
extensive “How to” and “Where
to” information for first-time
anglers and boaters.
The National PE Grants
Initiative — or PhyshED —
engages kids in the classroom,
providing grant funding to PE
teachers to design and deliver
boating and fishing as part of
their regular physical education
curriculum.
Texas educator Mark Fobian has
used the RBFF grant to help his
third-, fourth- and fifth-graders
learn fish anatomy, filleting and
cooking. His students collect
insects, identify them through >>
Craig Springer / USFWS
Mat Poole / USFWS
30 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
The Service has a partnership
with the Coevolution Institute,
the nonprofit administrator for
a collaboration known as the
North American Pollinator
Protection Campaign (NAPPC).
Through NAPPC, more than 100
government, private, university,
and nonprofit organizations are
working to promote the health of
resident and migratory North
American pollinators. NAPPC
partners have created a variety
of educational products on
pollinators. The most exciting
is Nature’s Partners:
Pollinators, Plants and You:
a comprehensive pollinator
curriculum for grades 3-6. The
curriculum is available online
<www.nappc.org/curriculum>.
NAPPC also has a Web site with
tools helpful to educators, such
as information on gardening for
pollinators, things children can do
to help pollinators and fact sheets
on pollinators and wildlife. These
documents and links are located
in the “Resources” section of the
<www.pollinator.org> .
For more information contact
<dolores_savignano@fws.gov>
or visit <www.fws.gov/
pollinators>.
Dolores A. Savignano,
Division of Environmental Quality,
Arlington, Virginia
Learning About the
Birds and Bees
What do raspberries, chocolate,
and almonds have in common?
Besides being best-selling ice
cream sundae toppings, they are
also foods from plants that
require pollinators. Raspberries
are typically pollinated by bees,
as are almonds. Chocolate is
pollinated by a small fly called
a midge.
Pollinators are critically important
to both the ecosystem and the
U.S. economy. More than 75
percent of the flowering plants
rely on pollinators, and honey
bees alone are responsible for an
estimated $15 billion worth of
pollinator services to agriculture
in the U.S. Many of our fruits,
vegetables, and nuts, as well as
other food products rely on
pollinators. Pollinators include
endangered and threatened
species, such as the long-nosed
bat, and migratory birds, such as
the ruby-throated hummingbird.
Activities centered on pollinators
are a great way to connect
children to nature, and questions
can be explored with little or no
equipment required. For example,
how are wind-pollinated flowers
distinguished from animal-pollinated
flowers? What does
the color, shape or smell of a
flower tell us about its pollinator?
What happens if pollinators are
not available?
Information on pollinators can be
combined with tips on good
nutrition, since diets high in fruits
and vegetables (foods dependent
on pollinators) are healthy.
Without animal pollinators, our
diets would be much more limited
and less flavorful. We are not the
only animals whose diets include
animal-pollinated food. Fruits and
berries are a component of the
diet of many birds and some
mammals, such as bears.
children with nature. From
there, we can teach them how
to properly care for these
precious resources.”
RBFF offers other programs and
resources aimed at piquing
children’s interest in outdoor
activities. The Passport to Fishing
and Boating Program, which
many organizations use to plan
events throughout the year and
during National Fishing and
Boating Week in June, provides
materials to enable even non-anglers
and boaters to introduce
the sports to kids and families.
To help newcomers get started,
RBFF also offers downloadable
tip sheets on kids and freshwater
fishing, basic boat care, fishing
terminology, how to tie knots and
more. These materials may be
downloaded at <www.RBFF.org>.
RBFF’s TakeMeFishing.org Web
site hosts a database with more
than 11,000 locations to boat and
fish. Site visitors can search by
state, region or zip code to get all
the information they need to plan
a day on the water, including
“Family Friendly Hot Spots” —
places to fish and boat that make
it easy to take the family. The
site also features the Kids
Fishing Hall of Fame, where
parents, friends and relatives
can honor the accomplishments
of junior anglers.
For more information about
RBFF programs that help
connect children with nature,
visit <www.RBFF.org>.
Stephanie West, Recreational
Boating and Fishing Foundation,
Alexandria, Virginia
(Fun, continued)
microscopes and determine
water quality. They also
measure, tag and release their
fishing catch and log all the
information online.
“With many parents working
two jobs and kids engaged in
computers and videogames, they
don’t have the opportunity to get
outdoors,” Fobian says.
Another grant program
introduces kids to fishing and
boating in a family setting at local
parks. RBFF and the National
Recreation and Park Association
(NRPA) created the Take Me
Fishing™ Community Grants
Initiative that helps local park
and recreation directors offer
instruction and loaner equipment,
and provide convenient access
to safe, public fishing and
boating facilities.
According to RBFF Education
and Outreach Manager Jim
Stewart, “Providing meaningful
introductions to these activities
at safe, family-friendly public
facilities can help spark and
sustain children’s interest and
participation, and expose these
activities to families of all
backgrounds and incomes.”
Kathy Spangler, NRPA’s director
of national partnerships, says the
grant program raises awareness
about more than just boating and
fishing. “Public lands don’t exist
without stewardship, and people
of all ages need to understand
how to conserve them,” she says.
“We see the programs as a
valuable first step in reconnecting
around the service
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 31
students release their salmon fry
into the wild, wondering where
they may end up.
In addition to in-class learning,
many of these classes have
“adopted” nearby streams where
they take field trips to test water
quality, wade in the water looking
for water bugs, and learn about
soil composition and how it
factors into plant growth for
particular habitats. Students also
are learning valuable testing
techniques and data collection
skills that are reflected in their
journal entries. Service learning
projects are woven into other
class projects during the school
year, such as tree planting, trash
removal and trail work. Stream
adoptions are a cooperative
effort with other federal agencies
and local conservation districts.
Cheri Anderson, Information
and Education Manager,
Underwood, Washington
Salmon in the Classroom
Sixteen fourth- and fifth-grade
classes throughout Washington’s
Columbia River Gorge are
learning about the extraordinary
world of the Pacific salmon by
raising the endangered fish in
their classrooms. The “Salmon
in the Classroom” program is
provided by the Service’s
Columbia Gorge Information and
Education Office. During the past
eight years, students have come
to anticipate the “fish lady” who
frequents their classroom to
teach them all sorts of interesting
things about salmon and lead
them on outdoor adventures.
The schools also do their part:
teachers decorate their
classrooms with stuffed and
colored salmon; children’s
literature about salmon crams
book shelves; school walls are
adorned with unique art and
stories about salmon; music
classes teach songs with salmon
themes; and several of the
schools hold evening showcases
to allow parents to see and hear
what their children have learned
about this miraculous fish.
The course begins with a visit to
the Spring Creek National Fish
Hatchery so students can see
salmon spawning. The eggs
collected from these adults are
later taken to classrooms for
students to observe. During the
next few months, students write
daily journal entries, use math to
compute hatch dates and percent
survival, and learn about the
importance of habitat and the
salmon’s amazing ability to adapt
to its environment. As the young
salmon grow, students begin
feeding them daily. They continue
to observe and document the
species’ growth and survival.
The program culminates when
Washington Ecological Services
Field Office in Washington State.
It is a great example of an
adaptable outdoor learning
experience that not only connects
students to nature but instills
respect for watersheds for
years to come. It also meets
Washington State academic
learning targets and provides
teacher planning and event
logistical guidelines. The program
is the result of a 12-year
partnership of agencies and
organizations, including the Fish
and Wildlife Service, Chelan
County Conservation District,
U.S. Forest Service, Cascade
Analytical, Washington State
Department of Ecology,
Washington State Conservation
Commission and various schools
and communities.
The Kids in the Creek curriculum
won first place in the Interpretive
Media Awards Competition at the
2006 conference for National
Association for Interpretation
(NAI). The competition promotes
excellence in the delivery of
natural, cultural, and historical
interpretation.
Susan Blair and Corky Broaddus,
Leavenworth National Fish
Hatchery, Leavenworth,
Washington; Judy DeLavergne,
Ecological Services,
Wenatchee, Washington.
around the service
Cheri Anderson helps a
student from Whitson
Elementary inWhite Salmon,
Washington monitor water
quality on Jewett Creek
as part of a larger stream
adoption program.
pacific
Kids in the Creek
The “Kids in the Creek” program
in north central Washington State
has helped connect children with
local watersheds for more than a
dozen years.
Each spring, hundreds of high
school students pull on waders
and slip into an outdoor
classroom — a cold mountain
stream. For one day, students will
experience what it is like to be a
biologist. Most of them have
never been this close to nature.
They collect and identify aquatic
macroinvertebrates, map
stream features and fish habitat,
measure stream flow and
temperature, analyze chemical
characteristics, identify riparian
plants, and observe and identify
watershed geology and
boundaries. At the end of the
class, students present land
use plans to actual planning
commissioners. The innovative
curriculum gives students and
teachers a better understanding
of watersheds and the critical
role of human land management
practices.
The Kids in the Creek program
was created by the Leavenworth
National Fish Hatchery, Mid-
Columbia Fisheries Resource
Office, and the Central
USFWS
Students participating
in Kids in the Creek
test water quality on
Icicle Creek.
Jim Anderson
32 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
ESA 101
Biologists at the Service’s
Arizona Ecological Services
Office (AESO) teamed-up with
Thunderbird High School in
Phoenix, Arizona to create a
year-long pilot curriculum
that introduces urban public
high school students to the
Endangered Species Act (ESA)
and the plight of Arizona’s
threatened, endangered, and
sensitive species.
Three classes of freshman and
sophomore accelerated biology
students were asked to
individually choose a native plant,
animal, or invertebrate species
to research and integrate into
a year-long project and final
oral presentation. This pilot
curriculum also includes a
history of the ESA and how this
pioneering legislation has been
used to conserve and recover
listed species.
Section 7 of the ESA is used as a
framework in this curriculum. The
curriculum requires each student
to complete several individual
writing assignments during the
academic year addressing
historical and current threats to
their chosen species and the
current status of their species.
It also requires students to create
a hypothetical proposed action
affecting their species, the
environmental baseline in the
area of their proposed action,
and their recommendations on
how to minimize effects to their
species. In essence, each student
completes a biological opinion on
their chosen species.
In addition, students were
required to contact or interview
professional biologists in
the public, private, or academic
sectors to hone communication
skills and get additional
information on their project.
around the service
This pilot curriculum was
designed as a “backdrop” to
integrate other major topics
that are covered in the
Glendale Unified High School
District’s accelerated biology
curriculum throughout the
school year. Topics include
cell biology, cellular respiration,
photosynthesis, genetics,
evolution, ecology, animal
behavior, biochemistry, and
mammalian physiology. The fact
that many or all of these topics
pertain directly to issues affecting
students’ chosen species
reinforces their understanding of
the connectivity of ecosystems
and the cause and effect
dynamics of actions on the
landscape.
As an attempt to reconnect urban
students with nature, several
students were granted the
opportunity to join AESO
biologists in the field to learn
more about native ecology and
wildlife and gain insight into the
professional careers of Service
biologists. For example, students
participated in native fish electro-shocking
surveys in a pristine
canyon stream, conducted Yuma
clapper rail surveys in marshland
habitat; conducted nocturnal
ranid frog surveys and
identification; conducted northern
Mexican gartersnake surveys;
and collected specimens for a
captive propagation and release
conservation project.
Jeff Servoss, Ecological Services,
Phoenix, Arizona
Jef Servos / USFWS
Bernard NWR, provides
opportunities for students to
discover the ecology of a
bottomland forest and the impact
invasive species have on the
natural environment.
Fueled by local partnerships, the
DEP program has encouraged
involvement by new schools and
organizations during its 12-year
history. A Nature of Learning
grant to the Friends of Brazoria
Wildlife Refuges enabled
Northside Elementary School in
Angleton, Texas to incorporate
multiple field trips to the refuges
into their fourth grade curriculum.
The year-long program integrates
nature into all subject materials.
A Coastal Management Plan
grant from Texas General Land
Office was instrumental in
providing environmental
education equipment and
displays for the Discovery Center.
The Cradle of Texas Chapter of
the Texas Master Naturalists
supports the program and is the
source for most of the trained
volunteer docents. Nearly 2,000
volunteer hours were donated by
these volunteers during field trips
in 2006.
Jennifer L. Sanchez, Project
Leader, Texas Mid-Coast NWR
Complex, Angleton, Texas
USFWS
southwest
DEEP in the Heart of Texas
Volunteers, partners and staff at
the Texas Mid-Coast National
Wildlife Refuges bring the
Discovery Environmental
Education Program (DEP) alive.
Thousands of students and adults
experience nature each year in
this intensive hands-on outdoor
education program coordinated
by Texas Mid-Coast Training
Technician Bryan Adams. DEP
enables children to experience
the Texas Gulf coast much as it
was before the arrival of humans,
and they are often amazed at
what is outside their front door.
Headquartered at the Discovery
Center at the Brazoria NWR, the
DEP program allows students
to discover a multitude of
invertebrates in a freshwater
pond; touch and learn about
reptiles; examine ways in which
water chemistry affects life; and
learn about the importance of
wetlands to the fisheries of the
Gulf of Mexico. The Discovery
Center allows students to bring
samples from the wild into a
laboratory setting and conduct
experiments and observations
they could not make in the field.
The Discover Outpost, at the
Hudson Woods Unit of San
Students from Thunderbird
High School in Phoenix,
participate in a Ranid frog
survey on Hassayampa River
in Maricopa County.
The DEEP program
allows students to
discover a multitude
of invertebrates in a
freshwater pond.
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 33
is a reality. Now in its fourth year,
this unique partnership between
the Service and the Fergus Falls
Independent School District 544
brings 100 students each school
day to the Prairie Wetlands
Learning Center.
The students are taught primarily
by two school district teachers
housed at the Prairie Wetlands
Learning Center, supplemented
with field, instructional, and
planning support from Service
environmental educators. Two
indoor classrooms house 25
students each, but those
classrooms are often empty while
the students spend time in their
true classroom: the 325 acres of
prairies and wetlands right
outside their door.
For students in a traditional
classroom, a typical day includes
reading textbooks and answering
questions; for students in the
Prairie Science Class, a typical
day includes reading the land and
asking questions. Prairie Science
Class teachers and staff at the
Prairie Wetlands Learning Center
use the seasonal changes and
rhythms of the prairie wetland
ecosystem to bring lessons to life.
National, state, and local
education standards are
incorporated in daily activities
and long term studies. Students
summarize and reflect on their
learning through writing and
literature assignments such as
describing their impressions of
the monarch butterfly or scientific
reports on the process of
capturing and banding ducks.
Fractions and percentages take
on new meaning as students
study them in the context of plant
cover on a wetland or invasive
species on a prairie tract.
By studying famous naturalists
such as Aldo Leopold, Rachael
Carson, Lewis and Clark, and
midwest
A Classroom Without Walls
Take a moment and think back to
when you were in fifth grade. You
probably had a typical classroom
with rows of desks and a
chalkboard in the front. If you
were lucky, your classroom had
a window or two facing outside,
and if you were really lucky, your
desk might have been near a
window. Maybe your classroom
even had an aquarium or two.
The only time you got outside
was for recess, to climb on the
monkey bars or play a game
of kickball.
Now imagine something
completely different. Every day of
the school year, you take a short
bus ride to the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service’s Prairie
Wetlands Learning Center. You
still spend two hours learning
science, applied math, writing,
and health — but not just from a
textbook. You learn math by
measuring the wing of a duck
you’ve just banded, or by
recording the length of the seed
head on a native plant such as
big bluestem. You experience
science firsthand by capturing
aquatic invertebrates and
comparing what you find in
different wetlands, or making
sound maps on the prairie. You
write about changes that occur
throughout the year in your one-meter
prairie plot, or create a
haiku about your experience
tracking a mink across the marsh
on snowshoes. And as far as
health goes, well, you’re outside
walking and exploring every day.
Sometimes it doesn’t feel like
learning at all — but it most
certainly is.
For fifth graders in the Prairie
Science Class in Fergus Falls,
Minnesota, the second scenario
around the service
Byrd Baylor, students discover
different ways to observe nature,
sharpen their observation skills
and deepen their sense of
wonder about the natural world.
This unique educational
partnership is proving that using
the environment as an integrating
context for traditional subject
areas works for students,
teachers, and parents. The first
three years of the program were
formally evaluated, and the
results have been positive.
Evaluations have shown that in
the Prairie Science Class,
students learn science, applied
math, and writing at least as
effectively as their counterparts
in the traditional fifth grade
classroom. Their motivation for
learning, attitudes towards the
environment and stewardship
behavior improve. But perhaps
the proof is best heard from the
students themselves:
“It’s made me a better thinker
because it helps you take the
time to think. Like if you are
outside and looking at tracks, you
think about what the animal was
doing and why it was there,” said
one student. “In the weather, you
think about how the temperatures
have changed. Yesterday the
humidity was 88 percent and
today it was 100 percent. And you
think about the difference and
what affect that will have.”
“It changes your attitude,” said
another student. “In fourth grade
I got detention all the time. This
year I haven’t had any detention.
I stay out of trouble because I
have more to do. I like coming
to school this year.”
Thanks to bonding money
directed to the City of Fergus Falls
from the Minnesota legislature,
the PWLC visitor center will be
expanded to include four
additional classrooms.
Construction is slated to begin
this summer, and Prairie Science
Class enrollment will double in
fall 2008.
For more information about the
Prairie Science Class, visit
<www.fws.gov/midwest/pwlc/
prairie_school.html> or call
218/736 0938.
Laura A. Bonneau, Visitor
Services, Prairie Wetlands
Learning Center, Fergus Falls,
Minnesota
USFWS
For students
in the Prairie
Science Class,
a typical day
includes reading
the land and
asking questions.
34 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
The program culminated in the
SEDS Bookfair. Teachers,
parents, students and onlookers
helped the Service raise more
than $400 to buy wildlife books for
Lee Expressive Arts School’s
media center.
“SEDS is a long-term
commitment by our office
towards ensuring future
conservation in Missouri,” said
Missouri Ecological Services
Field Supervisor Charlie Scott.
“We hope to expand this program
into more and more schools in the
near future.”
Ashley Spratt, Ecological
Services, Columbia, Missouri
around the service
Roberts also introduced
endangered Topeka shiners to the
school’s new aquarium, which
was donated by the Service.
Students were surprised to know
these endangered minnows can
be found in creeks right in their
own backyards.
Biologist Jill Utrup introduced
students to raptors and birds of
prey, and told the children about
recovery efforts that saved the
bald eagle from extinction.
Toward the end of the
presentation, the students were
surprised by visitors from the
MU Raptor Rehabilitation Center,
who brought two real birds of
prey, the great-horned owl and
American kestrel.
Planting SEEDS
The Missouri Ecological Services
Office’s SEDS program
(Students, the Environment, and
Endangered Species) brings fish
and wildlife biologists and the
endangered species they work to
protect into the classroom to
educate students about wildlife
and environmental conservation.
The program was unveiled at Lee
Expressive Arts School in
Columbia, Missouri during
National Environmental Education
Week. Service biologist Heidi
Kuska took a class of fifth graders
to an outdoor park to introduce
them to the world of caves and
karsts and the bat species that
call them home. Back in the
classroom, Sybill Amalon from
the U.S. Forest Service
introduced the students to
“Chewbacca” and “Pinky,”
two brown bats.
“The bat felt really hairy and the
wing was kinda smooth, but
kinda rough,” said 11-year-old
Tarus Moore.
Service biologist Andy Roberts
took students back to the time of
the dinosaurs, unveiling a shovel-nosed
sturgeon in a mobile tank
in the school’s media center.
The shovel-nosed sturgeon is a
close relative to the prehistoric
and endangered pallid sturgeon
and features the same sharp,
moustache-like barbells along
its mouth.
Service biologist Andy Roberts shows a shovel-nosed sturgeon
to two Lee School fifth graders.
Rick Hansen / USFWS
southeast
World of Discovery
We all have seen children
enthralled when someone brings
out an animal or when they are
exploring the natural world on our
public lands — that wide-eyed
look of discovery and sense
that this experience will stay
with them for a long time, if not
a lifetime.
The SEWE (South Eastern
Wildlife and Environment
Education) Earth Stewards
program is giving students along
the coast of South Carolina
multiple discovery moments and
an understanding and respect for
the mission of the National
Wildlife Refuges found in their
own backyards.
Cape Romain NWR became a
part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service’s Earth Stewards project
in 1998. Since then, SEWE Earth
Stewards has become a vibrant,
growing environmental education
project in conjunction with the
SEWE Visitor and Environmental
Education Center and the SEWE
Association, the Friends group for
South Carolina Lowcountry
Refuge Complex (Cape Romain,
Ernest F. Hollings ACE Basin, and
Waccamaw refuges).
The initial project focused on
fifth-grade students in a local
rural school. After looking at the
state educational standards for
that age, the SEWE Association
decided to highlight freshwater
wetland habitats that are
abundant in the coastal plain and
are important areas for many
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 35
“It’s never boring,” said 16-year
old Stephanie Dorsainvil. Josette
Kaufman, Marshall Foundation
executive director, says the
project also introduces urban
youth to the Everglades. “We
hope that giving them a positive,
hands-on experience will help
them develop an interest in the
wetland wilderness in their
backyards.”
One photo from each child
will be in an exhibit traveling
around Palm Beach County
later this year.
Karen Leggett, NWRS
Communications, Washington, DC
Loxahatchee
Through the Lens
Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee
National Wildlife Refuge helped
40 students from low income
schools become amateur
photographers during the annual
Trail Spruce-Up volunteer event
sponsored by the Arthur R.
Marshall Foundation.
“The Everglades through the Eyes
of Children” project is funded by
the Palm Beach County Cultural
Council. Students ages nine to 17
learned basic photography from
skilled mentors and then took
pictures of people and nature
around the refuge.
migratory birds and threatened
and endangered species. The
SEWE Association hired a
teacher to put together the
program curriculum and to guide
the group through initial classes
with students. Eventually, the
program featured a set of
cross-curriculum lesson plans
that included a field trip to a
swamp for hands-on learning
activities. Since 2000, the
program has grown from the
initial school with 50 students to
eight elementary schools with
approximately 650 students
and one middle school with
60 students.
What do SEWE Earth Stewards
do? Throughout the eight-week
curriculum they read books on
animals and their habitats; write
stories and poems; calculate
water absorption rates in wetland
experiments; discover animal
adaptations and behaviors; and
identify flora and fauna of
swamps and learn about
interdependence. Since Cape
Romain NWR is composed of salt
marsh and barrier islands and
only accessible by boat, the
SEWE Association worked with
the Francis Marion National
Forest (where the SEW

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U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Summer/Fall 2007
Fish & Wildlife News
Path to Discovery / 12 River Explorers / 16
Rx for Healthy Kids / 14 Linking Girls to the Land / 18
Special Issue
children & nature
2 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
Director’s Corner / 1
News Briefs / 3
Service Spotlight / 8
Science / 24
Around the Service / 28
Features
Departments In Their Own Words / 42
Our People / 45
Transitions / 45
Honors / 47
In Memoriam / 49
what’s inside
On the cover: Two children
explore the woods near the
National Conservation
Training Center in
West Virginia.
Steve Hillebrand / USFWS
Back to Nature / 8
Service employees are connecting
children with the land and with the
agency’s conservation mission.
By David Eisenhauer
Path to Discovery / 12
An innovative partnership in
Washington State helped blaze a trail
for all lifelong learners.
By Taylor Pittman
A Prescription for Healthy Kids / 14
Getting children outside is not just
about fun and games. Their health
may depend on it.
By Kyla Hastie and Shani Howard
River Explorers / 16
Class is in session at the
Upper Mississippi River National
Wildlife and Fish Refuge.
By Cindy Samples
Linking Girls to the Land / 18
By Jennifer Anderson
Senses in the Desert / 22
By Betty Mulcahy
Editor’s note: Connecting
children with nature is a
theme that clearly resonates
with Service employees.
We received about 100
submissions for this special
issue from all regions and
nearly every Service program.
To accommodate the high
volume of stories, we have
added a regular section
called Around the Service that
highlights events, programs
and activities in all Service
regions. Stories that did not
make it into the print edition
eventually will be included
in an online version of Fish
& Wildlife News, which is
currently under development.
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 1
from the director
Borrowing From Our Children
Growing up in the hills of Harlan County, Kentucky,
I never thought about the importance of connecting
with nature; it was as much a part of my life as
breathing. If I wasn’t up in the mountains chasing
squirrels, I was down on the Cumberland River trying
to fish and run trot lines or making boats out of old
car tops. Even though we didn’t have a lot of money,
I always felt rich.
For many kids today, however, exploring nature is fast
becoming a thing of the past. Time in the woods has
been replaced by time in front of a computer or
television screen; unstructured play has been replaced
by organized events run by adults; the art of
daydreaming has been replaced by a non-stop
schedule. Author Richard Louv, who writes about this
in his book Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our
Children from Nature Deficit Disorder, believes one
of the biggest problems is fear: Parents are terrified
of “stranger danger,” and many view the outdoors as
more of a threat than a sanctuary.
The result is a younger generation that is less
active and less interested in spending time outside,
which can lead to a host of physical and emotional
problems. And you can bet kids who prefer virtual
reality to natural reality are going to have a tough
time understanding why they should care about
conservation.
So what can we do?
The Service has identified connecting people
with nature as one of its six highest priorities.
We have formed a Children and Nature Working
Group — including representatives from every region
and program — to identify ways to reach out to
communities and build awareness that “nature play”
is good for both children and adults.
This special edition of Fish & Wildlife News provides
a glimpse of what Service employees from coast to
coast are already doing to reconnect children with
nature. From the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay
National Wildlife Refuge, where youngsters sample
brine shrimp in the salt ponds or investigate bird and
plant life with their parents, to the Chesapeake Bay
Field Office, where students create schoolyard
habitats outside their classroom door, our land base
and our people are helping folks of every age to get
outdoors. But we can always do more. We should look
for opportunities to connect children and families to
nature as we go about our daily work and help them
share in our conservation mission.
Connecting people with nature should not be just
another box to check off on a performance plan; it
should be something we want to do, something that is
a part of us. Sometimes when I’m bass fishing on a
lake and the sun is just breaking over the horizon and
the birds begin to fly low across the water, I lay down
my rod and realize I didn’t come here to catch fish;
I came for the healing power of nature and to feel
better as a human being. I know many of you have
had similar experiences and have a strong desire to
help people — especially youngsters — rediscover
what Rachel Carson called a “sense of wonder”
for the outdoors. Now is the time for all of us to act
on that desire.
John James Audubon once said, “A true
conservationist is a man who knows that the
world is not given by his fathers but borrowed
from his children.” It is time for us to pay back
that loan and share the riches of nature with
tomorrow’s caretakers.
To learn more about the Service’s children and nature
initiative, visit .
Director Hall with
youngsters during
a break at the
National Dialogue
on Children
and Nature at
the National
Conservation
Training Center in
September 2006.
Todd Harles / USFWS
2 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
guest column
No Child Left Inside
By Richard Louv
Leveraging its expertise, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service is already a leader in the growing public
movement to leave no child inside.
The future of children and conservation is at stake,
and this organization takes the outcome seriously.
Studies show that most conservation leaders credit
their commitment to the environment to two sources:
many hours spent outdoors, when they were children,
“in a keenly remembered wild or semi-wild place in
childhood or adolescence, and an adult who taught
respect for nature,” according to University of
Colorado environmental psychologist Louise Chawla.
I wonder how many of you reading this have a
personal story confirming her statement.
The famous biologist E.O. Wilson addressed this
in his memoir, Naturalist: “Most children have
a bug period, and I never outgrew mine.
Hands-on experience at the critical time, not
systematic knowledge, is what counts in the making
of a naturalist.”
Edmund Morris’ description of the boyhood years of
the presidential patron of conservation, Theodore
Roosevelt, suggests a similar genesis:
“Teedie’s interest in all ‘curiosities and living things’
became something of a trial to his elders. Meeting
Mrs. Hamilton Fish on a streetcar, he absentmindedly
lifted his hat, whereupon several frogs leaped out of
it.” A family maid protested the boy’s predilections:
“How can I do the laundry with a snapping turtle tied
to the legs of the sink?”
We may owe the existence of our protected national
wild lands to that turtle.
Unfortunately, today we see diminishing sales of
fishing and hunting licenses and a decline in
attendance at many of our national parks. If the gap
between children and nature continues to widen,
where will the future conservationists come from?
How will future natural scientists and nature
poets develop? What will happen to the political
constituency for our fish and wildlife, streams
and rivers, parks and refuges?
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service offers wonderful
opportunities for fishing, hunting, wildlife
photography and other outdoor experiences.
But the Service Directorate is determined to do
more — to create, in essence, a new national backyard.
Here are possibilities to consider:
Wildlife refuges close to urban area areas should be
expanded to provide kids with the hands-dirty, feet-wet
experiences that no classroom or digitally
simulated nature provides.
The Youth Conservation Corps should be expanded.
Conservation agencies should reach even deeper into
inner-city schools and neighborhoods to offer these
youngsters substantial and repeating experiences in
nature. These agencies could identify the kids with
nature talents, and then encourage and prepare them
for careers in conservation and the natural sciences.
As a tribute to Rachel Carson, the National Wildlife
Refuge System could designate certain areas as Sense
of Wonder Zones— special, safe places that would
encourage children to build tree forts and collect (and
release) bugs and turtles just as E.O. and Teedie did.
This is not to suggest that kids be allowed to damage
protected natural areas. But children cannot love
what they can never touch. As a matter of policy,
the conservation services should view the child-in-nature
as an endangered species, an indicator species
of the future — because if the young are not bonding
with nature now, who will care about the refuges in
the future?
Evidence suggests that children and adults benefit
so much from contact with nature that conservation
“can now be viewed as a public health strategy,”
says Howard Frumkin, Director of the National
Center for Environmental Health, Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention.
Think about that for a moment. This is a powerful
argument, one that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service is well positioned to make, and by so doing
will improve the health of children and the health
of the earth.
Richard Louv is the author of Last Child in the Woods:
Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder and
chairman of the Children & Nature Network
.
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 3
Service Expands Wildlife Forensics Lab
of Agriculture requirements
for containment of potentially
bio-hazardous materials entering
the United States; an expanded
state-of-the-art genetics lab;
a modern necropsy unit; new
offices and meeting rooms;
and an odor-free “bug room,”
where the lab’s domestic beetle
collection chews meat off
bones so scientists have
pristine skeletons to analyze.
“The expansion will really
enhance our ability to engage
with the national and
international wildlife forensics
communities,” said Ken Goddard,
director of the lab, which is
named after a longtime director
of the Service’s Law Enforcement
Program. “We simply didn’t have
the proper facility where we
could keep diseases contained so
we had to refuse some cases.”
The addition will be dedicated on
August 16, and the lab and new
facilities will be open for public
tours sometime in the spring.
“The forensics lab is essential to
our work in enforcing wildlife
laws and protecting resources
in this country and around the
world,” said Service Director
H. Dale Hall. “The lab helps
our special agents and wildlife
inspectors develop the evidence
they need to bring charges and
obtain convictions.”
Besides aiding the work of
Service law enforcement officers,
the lab, with a staff of 35 and
a 2007 budget of $3.5 million,
provides forensic support to all 50
state fish and wildlife agencies.
By treaty, it is the official crime
lab of the 172 signatory countries
of the Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species of
Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and
the Wildlife Subgroup of Interpol.
With global illegal trade in wildlife
and related products estimated at
billions of dollars each year, the
lab has no shortage of work.
DNA analysis done by the lab’s
scientists led to the conviction of
U.S. Caviar and Caviar, Ltd., in
2001, resulting in a $10.4 million
fine — the most ever in a wildlife
trafficking case. In 2000, work
done at the lab led to convictions
for the illegal sale of smuggled
shahtoosh shawls made from
the highly endangered Tibetan
antelope. More recently,
genetics work by lab scientists
led to the 2006 conviction
of a Portland, Oregon, man
who admitted selling shavings
from the horn of a black
rhinoceros, one of Africa’s
most endangered species.
Authorities in Israel want the lab
to help them find out who has
been killing wild gazelles but
Goddard said they had to
decline because of the lack
of a containment lab. The new
Bio-Hazard III facility will
change that.
Among the many discoveries by
the lab’s scientists is a means of
distinguishing non-fossilized
ancient mammoth and mastodon
elephant ivory from modern
African and Asian elephant ivory,
utilizing the simplest lab
instrument known: a protractor.
After discovering that each
species has its own hemoglobin
molecules, lab scientists
developed a species
identification technique that
takes 15 minutes instead of up
to three days.
The lab’s scientists are starting
research on a means of
determining where an animal
is from by identifying the
stable isotopes in its body. This
technique will enable the lab
to determine the origin of an
animal or animal product,
thus confirming or contradicting
the information on an import/
export permit.
The new addition also features
a forensics garden designed
to educate the public about
wildlife forensics and provide
a protective buffer for the lab.
This scientific garden, one of only
four or five in the world (including
the one in France where
Leonardo daVinci is buried) was
designed by 14 graduate students
from the University of Oregon’s
Landscape Architecture School.
It will be planted this fall with
native plants.
“A walkway will take visitors
through the three-dimensional
garden showing the connection
of victim, suspect and crime
scene and leading to a solution,”
Goddard said. “This will be the
only one of its kind.”
Joan Jewett, External Affairs,
Portland, Oregon
news briefs
Since 1988, the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service’s Clark R. Bavin
National Fish and Wildlife
Forensics Laboratory in Ashland,
Oregon, has helped solve wildlife
crimes around the world,
resulting in convictions of caviar
and ivory smugglers, poachers
of rare animals and dealers of
forbidden “medicinal cures.”
In the process, the lab’s
scientists have developed many
of the advances in the field of
wildlife forensics.
But there were things the
lab couldn’t do, such as
accepting carcasses and
animal parts from overseas and
conducting toxicology work
that involved handling hazardous
materials such as poisons,
pesticides, blood pathogens
and other substances that can
carry diseases.
Now, thanks to a new $15 million
addition, that will change. The
world’s most comprehensive
wildlife forensics lab will truly
be able to serve the world.
The 17,000 square-foot addition
includes a Biological Containment
Area that meets Department
Clark R. Bavin National
Fish and Wildlife Forensics
Laboratory in Ashland, Oregon.
USFWS
4 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
news briefs
Hot Topic
Wildlife Service Web site, at
.
Concerns about the status of the
world’s polar bear populations,
driven by such actions as the
International Union for the
Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
Polar Bear Specialist’s Group’s
2005 decision to change the
species’ conservation status from
“Low Risk” to “Vulnerable” and
the Service’s January 2007
proposal to list the polar bear
worldwide as “threatened” under
the ESA, have increased in recent
years in the face of observed and
predicted changes in the extent
and seasonal duration of sea ice.
These and other concerns stem
from the impacts of changing
world climate patterns, which
are especially visible in the
arctic regions.
The five nations participating
in the meeting are also
signatories to the landmark 1973
Agreement for the Conservation
of Polar Bears. That agreement
(which the IUCN’s Polar Bear
Specialist Group helped
champion) called for the member
nations to coordinate research
efforts, share information,
cooperate on the management of
migrating polar bear populations,
and continue to consult with one
another for the purpose of
providing increased protection
for the world’s populations of this
emblematic marine mammal.
In the spirit of the agreement,
Hall hopes this will be the first
of a series of annual meetings,
either by teleconference or
face-to face, the latter to rotate
The 95-degree heat at the
Service’s National Conservation
Training Center in West Virginia
provided a strange setting for a
meeting to discuss international
polar bear conservation.
Representatives from the five
“range states” (those nations that
host populations of polar bears;
the U.S., Canada, Norway,
Greenland, and Russia), most of
whom were more accustomed to
northerly climates, soldiered on
through the heat with good
humor. More than one, however,
was heard to compare the
beautiful Shepherdstown
outdoors to the inside of a sauna.
The delegates were gathered at
NCTC to discuss the management
and conservation of polar bears
across the Arctic region. The
United States delegation, lead by
Director H. Dale Hall (and
including representation from
Service, USGS, the Department
of State, the Alaska Nanuuq
Commission, and the State of
Alaska) was joined by similar
groups representing the other
four range states.
The attendees focused their
discussions on such pivotal
issues as sport harvest,
subsistence harvest, import/
export of polar bear parts and
products, polar bear research
and monitoring, and bear-human
interactions. Although not
intended to develop or change
policy, the meeting was intended
to serve as a starting point, and to
initiate information exchanges
leading to enhanced polar bear
conservation in all of these Arctic
nations. Reports presented by
countries during the meeting are
available on the Fish and
among the range-state nations.
Such gatherings would bring
together representatives who
serve at the directorate level of
their countries’ conservation
agencies, and provide a
companion structure to the IUCN
Polar Bear Specialist Group,
which is a group of scientists that
meets every three to five years.
The new series of range-state
directorate-level meetings
would serve as an international
forum able to take the findings
and recommendations of the
Specialist Group’s biologists and
translate them into coordinated
actions for the benefit of polar
bears worldwide.
“Each of the countries shares
the goal of ensuring healthy
polar bear populations for
future generations. This
meeting enabled experts and
policymakers to come together
and share ideas and I’m
extremely pleased at the
progress we made,” Hall said.
Bruce Woods, Media Relations
Chief, Anchorage, Alaska
Polar bear female with young.
Susanne Miller / USFWS
Delegates from the five polar-bear “range states” gathered at
NCTC in June to discuss cooperation in polar-bear conservation.
Bruce Woods / USFWS
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 5
managers typically have adopted
a confine-and-contain strategy
on the refuge using a combination
of ground and aerial suppression
tactics to keep fire from
spreading outside the swamp.
One of the endangered species
most at risk from the fire was the
Red-cockaded woodpecker,
which nests in upland areas.
There was concern the fires
might have damaged or destroyed
colonies of cavity trees used by
the birds; however, Refuge
biologists Dean Easton and Sara
Aicher inspected the colony sites
and discovered no evidence of
red-cockaded woodpecker
mortality. In fact, they found
ample evidence of post-fire
woodpecker activity. “We
discovered that some of the
birds re-nested after the fire.”
Easton said. “These are hardy
woodpeckers, which gives us
hope for their continued survival.”
The largest fire in refuge history
will benefit the swamp for
decades to come, Gillette said.
“Fire enhances the ecosystem
and is a primary force of nature
that sustains the diversity and
richness of a wide variety of plant
and animal species,” he said.
“Whether it is fast moving or slow
and creeping, fire in one form or
another makes the Okefenokee a
world-class resource and a
fascinating unit of the National
Wildlife Refuge System.”
Shawn Gillette, Refuge Ranger,
Okefenokee National Wildlife
Refuge, Folkston, Georgia
Okefenokee NWR heals from wildfires
Okefenokee Swamp Featured on New Postage Stamp
for postage for letters between
the U.S. and Mexico or Canada.
Through its support of the
Federal and Junior Duck
Stamp programs, the U.S.
Postal Service is an important
conservation partner of the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service. Sales
of the Federal Duck Stamp
have helped protect more than
5.2 million acres of wetlands for
national wildlife refuges.
The Postal Service is also
an active partner in the
Junior Duck Stamp program.
Each year, more than
30,000 schoolchildren from
kindergarten through twelfth
grade participate in the Junior
Duck Stamp program. Through
this unique program, kids learn
not just about ducks — but
also learn about conservation,
ecology, wetlands, waterfowl,
and more.
Joshua Winchell, Public Affairs,
Washington, DC
The most recent addition to the
Scenic American Landscapes
postage stamp series featuring
Okefenokee Swamp was
unveiled June 1 at the NAPEX
2007 stamp exhibition in
Northern Virginia.
This stamp depicts the still
water, cypress trees and yellow
cow-lilies of the Okefenokee
Swamp in southeastern Georgia
and northeast Florida, an image
that contrasted sharply with the
wildfires that raged this summer
on the Okefenokee National
Wildlife Refuge. Established in
1937, the refuge protects 402,000
acres of the 438,000 swamp.
The photograph on the stamp
was taken by José Azel. This
new $.69 First Class Mail
International stamp can be used
As of mid September, remnants of
wildfires that consumed about
85 percent of the 403,000-acre
Okefenokee National Wildlife
Refuge continued to smolder.
Refuge Ranger Shawn Gillette
said while no active flames are
present, some hot spots exist in
the thick layers of peat moss, and
it will take at least a two-foot rise
in the water table to extinguish
them. Because the hot spots are
contained in an isolated area,
Gillette said most of the
world-famous wildlife refuge
has reopened and visitors are
slowly returning.
“Visitation is starting to
increase,” he said, adding that
visitors are seeing more wildlife
than normal because the fires
have removed the thick
underbrush, and animals such
as black bear, bobcat, and deer
can now be better observed.
The Big Turnaround Complex of
wildfires spread into the refuge’s
native longleaf pine habitat,
which supports many endangered
and threatened species. Despite
the fire, Gillette said the majority
of the forested upland resources
were not significantly damaged
because of the aggressive and
successful prescribed fire
management program used by
the refuge to promote this
ecosystem.
Decades of experience have
demonstrated that wildfire cannot
be fought successfully inside
the Okefenokee Swamp. The
swamp’s sheer size and its
mosaic of habitat types render
traditional ground suppression
efforts impractical. Incident
Shawn Gillete / USFWS
Biologist Aicher monitors longleaf pine habitat at the refuge.
6 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
Internet Sleuths
news briefs
It’s true, said U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service Special Agent Ed
Newcomer, the Internet has made
wildlife crime easier — and easier
to hide. But the anonymity of
the online world has also
made it easier for wildlife law
enforcement agents to pose
as potential customers and to
catch people.
“What works for criminals also
works for us,” said Newcomer.
“The Internet provides anonymity
for everyone, and when we go
online, the people we’re after
have no idea who we are.”
Wildlife crime is a huge growth
industry, grown larger still by the
Internet. Most experts believe
that the global illegal wildlife
trade measures in the billions of
dollars, annually. Profits in this
illicit market are so huge that law
enforcement officers routinely
note that the black market in
wildlife is now the second largest
in the world, ranking only behind
the trade in illegal drugs. (In the
mid-1990s, an ounce of rhino horn
sold in Yemen for about $1,687 per
ounce, according to the World
Wildlife Fund — making it more
valuable than gold, which has a
current price of $667 per ounce).
Animals — including everything
from insects to bizarre objects
like footstools made from
elephant feet — have always
had aficionados in the more
developed Western countries.
The nations that are most likely
to have the most vigorous
On their first day at the hatchery,
agents collected the remains of
more than 200 heron carcasses in
various states of decay hanging
from trees and on the ground.
Under a dead pine tree, agents
found piles of bird bones.
They sent several heron
carcasses to the National Fish
and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory
in Ashland, Oregon where
scientists determined the cause
of death to be gunshot.
Resuming surveillance in the
early spring, agents collected
more heron and osprey
carcasses. They also found a
freshly killed immature bald eagle
under the dead pine tree.
Agents arrested Zak and Lloyd
and searched the hatchery,
seizing two rifles. As a condition
of their release, the court
ordered Zak to surrender 118
firearms and Lloyd to surrender
seven firearms.
Private Hatchery
Owner Sentenced
for Killing Birds
The owner of a private western
Massachusetts hatchery found
guilty of violating both the
Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA)
and the Bald and Golden Eagle
Protection Act for killing an
eagle and hundreds of other
birds has been sentenced to
six months in a halfway house
and five years probation with
no contact with weapons.
Michael Zak also must pay a
$65,000 fine, which will go to
the North American Wetlands
Restoration Fund.
In addition to shooting an
immature bald eagle, Zak also
killed hundreds of great blue
herons and ospreys over the
course of nearly 30 years.
The birds were feeding on
trout in the hatchery’s
unprotected raceways.
Northeast Region special agents,
led by case agent Tom Ricardi,
investigated Mohawk Trout
Hatchery in the fall of 2005 and
the spring of 2006 based on
a tip from Massachusetts
Environmental Police. Agents
conducted more than 30 days and
hundreds of hours of surveillance
from the woods surrounding the
Sunderland, Massachusetts
hatchery. Agents videotaped
Zak shooting at a heron and
Zak’s son-in-law Timothy Lloyd
shooting and killing an osprey.
They also observed Zak shooting
and killing a heron.
USFWS
In all, agents collected carcasses
of nearly 300 herons, 15 ospreys,
one red-tailed hawk and one
crow. For killing herons and
ospreys, the pair each pleaded
guilty to two Migratory Bird
Treaty Act violations and one
count of conspiracy, but Zak
requested a trial on the charges
of killing a bald eagle.
In April, following a six-day
bench trial, U.S. District Court
Judge Michael Ponsor found
Zak guilty of violating both the
MBTA and the Bald and Golden
Eagle Protection Act for killing
the eagle.
Lloyd was fined $1,500 and must
serve two years probation and
perform 200 hours of community
service.
Diana Weaver, External Affairs,
Hadley, Massachusetts
A Service special agent examines carcasses of an immature bald
eagle and an osprey killed on private hatchery property during
an investigation of bird shootings.
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 7
take a nature hike, or learn how
to become year-round
birdwatchers.
Web site visitors can use a site
locator to find places throughout
the Chicago Wilderness system
to take their kids, along with a list
teacher resources and the latest
news on current and upcoming
events and activities to get
children outside. The program’s
ultimate goal is fostering
generations of children who care
enough about nature to protect it.
conservation movements also Windy City Wilderness
have citizens with the most
disposable income. “That’s the
engine that really drives this
train,” said Newcomer.
The drive that pushes people to
buy such things as bird-eating
spiders, giant African scorpions,
poisonous snakes, macabre
furniture and other ornaments
made from animal parts is, said
Newcomer, as simple as the
desire to want something that
nobody else has. The buyers are
frequently people in upper
income levels who simply
seem to be taken by a novelty
of the moment. The crime is
compounded when the new
owners of live exotic creatures
become bored — and decide to
dump them in the wild. That has
helped place Florida at the top
of the list of states with invasive
species. California, where
Newcomer is based, has
its share.
How much illegal wildlife is
available on the Internet?
Newcomer said it’s difficult to
know; there is no authoritative,
dependable research. But as
someone who spends time
chasing Internet crime, he’s
confident the numbers run to
the thousands.
Newcomer thrives on the
challenge; he relishes telling the
story about how he and his
colleagues nabbed a man in
Los Angeles not long ago who
billed himself as “the world’s
most wanted butterfly smuggler.”
He sold Newcomer $14,000 worth
of protected butterflies and would
have sold him $300,000 worth,
if Newcomer had had the cash.
The smuggler is serving a two-year
sentence in federal prison.
The agents’ undercover work is
as much a battle of wits as
anything else; they must change
their tactics often — to fit the
changing tactics of the people
they are after.
Newcomer, who earned a law
degree before deciding he
wanted to be a wildlife agent,
isn’t discouraged. “Everything I
work for is incapable of dialing
9-1-1,” said Newcomer. “
Wildlife is resilient, but it’s not
inexhaustible. You worry about
reaching the end of the line. I
want every illegal wildlife dealer
who is online to think about one
thing: your next customer may be
a Fish and Wildlife Service law
enforcement agent.”
Ken Burton, Public Affairs,
Washington, DC
news briefs
More than 200 Chicago
Wilderness member
organizations, including the
Midwest Region’s Chicago
Ecological Services field office,
are forging a connection
between children and nature
with programs such as camping
trips, nature scavenger hunts
and birding hikes. Beginning
next year, Chicago Wilderness
members will begin offering all-new
programs as part of Leave
No Child Inside, the consortium’s
new effort to get kids outdoors.
The Leave No Child Inside
program kicked off June 16 at
Chicago’s Jackson Park, as
officials from the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, BP America
and the U.S. Forest Service
helped Chicago Wilderness
launch its effort to encourage
youth to explore the outdoors.
“Our nation has a great heritage
of outdoor activity and
stewardship,” said Robyn
Thorson, Midwest Regional
Director, at the kick-off event.
“Because we treasure the link
between people and nature
we’ve added Leave No Child
Inside and similar initiatives to
our agency’s national priorities.”
Leave No Child Inside offers
hundreds of year-round events
in nature accessible to millions
of children throughout the
region, and a Chicago
Wilderness Field Book to
encourage fun and educational
visits to local natural areas. The
Leave No Child Inside Web site
offers a
wealth of information on how to
connect kids and nature through
Chicago Wilderness programs,
lands and activities. Kids can
play “Bat and Moth,” find out
how to raise monarch butterflies,
Chicago Wilderness is a
partnership of more than 200
public and private organizations
working together to protect the
Chicago region’s natural spaces,
help conserve the diversity of
plants and animals, and enrich
local residents’ quality of life.
The partnership forms a natural
network spanning more than
300,000 acres of forests, prairies,
savannas, wetlands, lakes and
other protected open spaces,
in southeastern Wisconsin,
northeastern Illinois,
northwestern Indiana, and
southwestern Michigan.
Georgia Parham, External Affairs,
Bloomington, Indiana
A teen gets close to nature at the
Leave No Child Inside event
at Chicago’s Jackson Park.
USFWS
8 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
service spotlight
For years, Service employees have been connecting children
with the land and with the agency’s conservation mission.
Today those efforts may be more important than ever.
By David Eisenhauer
At four feet six inches, 9-year-old Lexi Monroe isn’t much taller than the clump of
native bunchgrass she is trying to plant. Her knees are sinking in mud and her shovel is
losing its battle with the hard-packed soil, but the freckled fourth grader is steadfastly
determined to get her plant in the ground.
Monroe and 36 of her classmates at
Rockledge Elementary in Bowie,
Maryland, are spending the warm spring
morning installing vegetation in the
school’s backyard “wetland” under the
guidance of Fish and Wildlife Service
biologist Carolyn Kolstad. The knee-high
trench behind the school serves as a
living laboratory where the youngsters
learn how to build habitat for local
wildlife and receive a first-hand lesson
in environmental conservation.
As director of the Chesapeake Bay Field
Office Schoolyard Habitat program,
Kolstad provides a combination of
biological expertise, onsite technical and
design assistance and hands-on training
for teachers and students — all the
necessary components for implementing a
successful student-led restoration project
on school grounds. The students are
involved every step of the way, from
planning and design through grant
writing, planting and community outreach.
To date, the Service has assisted
approximately 150 Maryland schools in
completing wetland, meadow, and forest
projects involving more than 30,000
students. An additional 50,000 to 60,000
students have used the restored habitat
For years, Service employees have taught
children about nature and respect for
natural resources while accomplishing
important wildlife habitat goals. But
today those efforts may be more important
than ever.
Mounting evidence shows an increasing
number of children are becoming
disconnected from nature, preferring to
spend time indoors immersed in a virtual
reality of television, video games, and
I-pods rather than explore the natural
reality outside their front doors. Author
Richard Louv, whose book Last Child in the
Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature
Deficit Disorder chronicles this trend,
argues that increased urbanization,
parental anxiety, residential development
restrictions and structured play have
kept children on a tight leash. This
separation from the natural world can
result in a host of physical and mental
ailments, Louv warns — from childhood
obesity to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder — and erode future support
for conservation.
“If this gap between children and nature
continues to widen,” he asks, “where will
future conservationists come from?”
Sparking a Conservation Ethic
As the nation’s primary conservation
agency, the Service has a significant stake
in answering that question. Alarmed by
Louv’s conclusions and steady declines
in hunting and fishing license sales, the
Service, The Conservation Fund and >>
Lavonda Walton / USFWS back to nature
sites as part of an integrated curriculum
approach. Annually, the program provides
training for hundreds of teachers and
involves thousands of students in projects
on school grounds that create habitat for
wildlife, help to improve water quality and
provide outdoor classrooms where
students can interact with and observe
natural resources daily.
The Schoolyard Habitat program not
only teaches children about natural
systems, Kolstad says, but it also sows
seeds of conservation in their budding
young minds.
“This may be the first time some of these
students have ever planted a plant,” she
says. “The experience can forge a life-long
connection to the natural world.”
These kinds of lessons are taking place
at refuges, hatcheries, and Service field
stations across the country — from the
“Kids in the Creek” program, where high
schoolers in Chelan County, Washington,
assess stream health by identifying
aquatic insects to the Prairie Wetlands
Learning Center in Fergus Falls,
Minnesota, where students spend a
semester studying traditional subjects
in an outdoor learning environment.
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 9
Below: Service biologist Carolyn Kolstad, director of the Chesapeake Bay Field Office’s
Schoolyard Habitat program (here with students from Rockledge Elementary in
Maryland) explains thecacies of wetland plant plugs.
It’s gratifying to
know the passion
I have for the
outdoors is being
passed to the
next generation —
not because I tell
them they should
have this passion,
but because they
have been given
the opportunity
to discover it
on their own.”
Carolyn Kolstad
10 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
“With big issues like climate change
impacting our conservation mission, we
will need every American to become part
of the solution. Engaging children in our
conservation and restoration
efforts — from planting a tree to banding
a duck — gives them a sense of connection
to the natural world and personal
empowerment that they can make a
difference,” Lemon said. “Whether they
grow to be a biologist, a banker or a
mechanic, we will need them to be aware
and care about the natural world. That
starts with connecting them with nature
when they are young. When you see the
light in a child’s eyes when they come in
contact with a wild animal, you know that
you have kindled a flame in their soul.”
Making the Connections
As this issue of Fish & Wildlife News
shows, the Service hasn’t been sitting on
the sidelines when it comes to connecting
children with nature. Dozens of hands-on
conservation projects help restore
habitat and wildlife species and teach
children outdoor and scientific skills.
Service employees also regularly give
presentations at schools, provide
expertise on field trips, conduct training
for teachers, participate in summer
camps, and help develop curricula and
lesson plans that deal with natural
resource issues.
The Refuge System’s nearly 100 million
acres provide plentiful opportunities to
reconnect children and family with the
outdoors through the System’s “Big Six”
recreational uses — hunting, fishing,
wildlife observation, nature photography,
environmental education and
interpretation. Nearly 40 million visitors
enjoy refuges each year, and more than
300 refuges annually offer environmental
education programs for some 700,000
students and teachers. Likewise, many
hatcheries also provide excellent
recreational and educational opportunities
for schools and communities and regularly
host events to share the Service’s
conservation message.
Most programs and initiatives are done in
collaboration with a variety of partners,
including watershed groups, scouting
groups, refuge and hatchery friends
(Nature, continued)
Louv organized a national dialogue on
children and nature at the National
Conservation Training Center (NCTC)
in September 2006 to discuss the how to
reconnect a generation of youth with the
natural world — and secure the mental and
physical health benefits that go with it.
About 350 educators, health professionals
and conservationists participated in the
meeting, including Secretary of the
Interior Dirk Kempthorne, Service
Director H. Dale Hall, The Conservation
Fund’s President Larry Selzer, Executive
Director of the North American
Montessori Teachers’ Association
David Kahn and Yale University’s
Stephen Kellert.
“Fishing and just playing around in the
woods was an important part of my
childhood,” Hall says. “Our kids need to
have a chance to tromp through a woodlot
or muck around in a creek. That’s the
foundation of a healthy relationship with
the outdoors and a way to spark a
conservation ethic.”
In January 2007, the Service Directorate
listed connecting people with nature as
one of the agency’s six top conservation
priorities and created a national Children
and Nature Working Group of field and
regional office representatives from each
program to map a course of action for the
future. In December, the working group is
sponsoring a national workshop at NCTC
that will give Service employees new skills
and training to help children and families
develop strong life-long connections with
the natural world.
NCTC Director Rick Lemon, who leads
the Service’s Children and Nature
Executive Team, says the agency —
with its extensive land base and passionate
and knowledgeable employees — is well
positioned to help children reconnect
with nature. But while the Service
already provides public use
opportunities — ranging from hunting,
fishing, observing and photographing
wildlife, or simply exploring and
discovering connections to nature on
refuges — Lemon says an “even greater
and more focused effort is needed.”
service spotlight
groups, volunteers and junior naturalist
programs. The Service also regularly
teams up with national conservation
organizations such as Audubon, the
Recreational Boating and Fishing
Foundation, the National Wildlife
Federation and the National Fish and
Wildlife Foundation.
Lemon says he is encouraged by the wide
range of Service programs that connect
children with nature, but suggests the
agency needs to integrate existing and
new programs with its five other top
conservation priorities (National
Wildlife Refuge System, endangered
and threatened species, landscape
conservation, aquatic species, and
migratory birds) seek nontraditional
partners, incorporate new technologies to
reach kids and speak with one voice. The
Service’s children and nature initiative
will include:
n Develop a consistent message
and materials to raise awareness
within the Service and externally about
the importance of connecting children
to nature.
n Identify opportunities within each region
to connect children with nature. These will
be either new efforts or a refocusing of
existing efforts that better target children.
n Reach out to urban environments and/or
with traditionally underserved audiences.
n Identify national campaigns or develop
one Service-wide campaign to connect
children to nature.
Steve Hillebrand / USFWS
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 11
service spotlight
Links to the Outdoors
Here is a sampling of Web links for Service programs that
connect children with nature. This is not an exhaustive list
but demonstrates a range of activities designed to get kids
outside and teach them the importance of conservation.
Environmental Education
Endangered Species
Recreation
n Develop a Web site to provide a one-stop
source of readily accessible information,
outreach materials, curricula and lesson
plans and a community of practice where
practitioners can interact in posting
best practices, success stories, questions
and issues.
n Analyze existing training courses and
make adjustments and/or create new
courses to build competency in Service
employees to connect children with nature.
n Work with traditional and nontraditional
partners such as the healthcare
community, educators, technology and
medical companies to link efforts to get
children outside into nature.
“The core mission of the Service has not
changed,” Lemon says. “However,
stressing the wellness benefits from
connecting with nature in our outreach
message is a paradigm shift for the
Service; one that will surely reap
rewards in terms of increased advocacy
and conservation.”
Discovering the Passion
For Carolyn Kolstad, connecting children
with the outdoors is second nature.
She sits on the ground behind Rockledge
Elementary, encircled by a gaggle of
young onlookers as she explains the
intricacies of wetland plant plugs.
Kolstad describes the different plant
characteristics — roots, leaves, and in
some cases, flowers — and explains that
wetland plants have a unique ability to
live under water. Her words are sinking in.
“The Chesapeake Bay is a really good
resource,” says student Lisa Chen, 8, as
she carefully pats the soil around tiny
vegetation that will soon be submerged.
“The Bay gives you food and powers
the city.”
“Nitrogen and phosphorus makes
the fish die in the Chesapeake Bay,”
pipes in 10-year-old Taylor Peterson.
“A wetland is a natural filter. It gets
out all the chemicals.”
Kolstad’s duties as a teacher extend to her
role as a member of the Service’s Children
and Nature Working Group and her life as
a working mother. She says she spends
most of her “free time” with her 2-year-old
son playing outside and exploring the
universe of living things in her own
backyard. For her, connecting children
with nature isn’t a job; it’s a labor of love.
“The Service’s children and nature
initiative is important to me because I can
see the connection kids are making with
the outdoors,” Kolstad says. “I see it in
the eyes of children I’ve been fortunate
to meet in my experience at work, and
I see it in my own child’s eyes. It’s
gratifying to know the passion I have for
the outdoors is being passed to the next
generation — not because I tell them they
should have this passion, but because
they have been given the opportunity to
discover it on their own.”
For more information about the Service’s
children and nature initiative, visit
or e-mail Janet
Ady, Chief, Division of Education Outreach
at the National Conservation Training
Center, at
David Eisenhauer is a public affairs specialist
in Washington, DC. Additional reporting by
Claire Markgraf; Cathy Rezabeck, outreach
coordinator in Anchorage, Alaska; and Janet
Ady, Chief, Division of Education Outreach
at the National Conservation Training Center
in Shepherdstown, West Virginia.
Refuges
Fish Hatcheries
Migratory Birds
<66.241.214.202/index.cfm>
12 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
When Kathy Jacobson was growing up in California, she roamed Wildwood Regional
Park. “The defining moments in my life,” she recalls, “were watching a tarantula hawk
(a type of wasp) preying on a tarantula to use its body as a nesting site for her eggs.
I also loved walking through the park’s dry canyon for hours and seeing Chumash
Indian pictographs on its walls. They lent an air of magical human habitation and deep
rootedness in the land.”
Path to Discovery
Kathy Jacobson and Janet Strong
didn’t just help restore a mile of
riparian area on one of the biggest
salmon-bearing rivers in Washington;
they blazed a trail for lifelong learners.
Story by Taylor Pittman
Photos by Kathy Jacobson
Today Jacobson directs the Chehalis
Basin Educational Consortium (CBEC),
a partnership composed of Educational
Service District 113, the Washington State
Departments of Ecology and Fish and
Wildlife, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
several school districts, Grays Harbor
College, the Chehalis River Land Trust and
Council. The primary purpose of CBEC
is to support the Chehalis watershed with
environmental education that meets the
state’s learning goals while addressing
issues in the watershed.
Jacobson and Janet Strong, Director of the
Chehalis River Bain Land Trust, were
instrumental in getting Discovery Trail on
the ground. The nature trail was built to
help people of all ages learn the importance
and value of the complex interrelationships
between the land, the Chehalis River and
the people who have inhabited the region
for decades.
The trail is the result of a partnership
between the City of Centralia and the
Chehalis River Basin Land Trust — a
collaboration built on a mutual desire to
protect wild salmon and to provide support
to the riverbanks from flooding by
planting thousands of native trees and
shrubs along the river. The 1.5-mile long
trail allows visitors to see a river-riparian
ecosystem in action: bald eagles nesting,
king fishers darting over the river in
search of fish, a jumping salmon. Each
trail station examines a different aspect of
a working biological system.
When Jacobson’s CBEC classes got
involved, science teachers expanded the
experiential education program from
students gathering data to planting trees,
producing a nature guide and writing
poetry about their experiences.
The Chehalis River.
The Discovery
Trail was built
to help people
of all ages learn
the importance
and value of
the complex
interrelationships
between the land,
the Chehalis River
and the people who
have inhabited the
region for decades.
Jacobson says the students’ “passion for
learning is obvious.”
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 13
“I learned to teach people to love the
earth and not to change the environment
for our needs.”
“If you live farther away from the harbor,
your pollution will take longer to get there,
but it will still get there.”
These lessons come from being outdoors,
up to their armpits in water, dirt and
trees. Jacobson and Strong didn’t just
help restore a mile of riparian area on
one of the biggest salmon-bearing rivers
in Washington; they blazed a trail for
themselves and others in becoming
lifelong learners and good citizens of
the land.
Taylor Pittman is an Information and
Education Specialist for the Western
Washington Fish and Wildlife Office in
Lacey, Washington
One teacher said, “This was the chance for
the kids to see first hand how what we
learn in school applies to the real world.”
“The students’ passion for learning is
obvious,” Jacobson says. “When students
participate in a real activity with real
consequences, the learning objectives are
being met and I never hear, ‘I’m bored.’”
Strong adds, “It is so rewarding to watch
the kids working with wheelbarrows,
shovels, their hands — they are so proud.
They’d come back with friends to take
walks. There’s no doubt in me that these
kids get a lot out of hands-on work.”
At year’s end, the Chehalis Student
Congress was held and students from all
over the watershed came together to share
and compare their data, participate in
workshops given by resource professionals
and view the art created. When asked
about the most important thing they
learned, students responded:
“I learned to take care of and watch what
we put in the rivers.”
By The Numbers
The Discovery Trail
Location Centralia, Washington
Length 1 mile
7,000 trees planted from 2003-06
22 tree species planted in the
last three years
700 participating students
20 participating teachers
100 participating parents
2,700 square miles of watershed
Two students record their observations.
14 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
A Prescription for Healthy
And besides, many kids will tell you they
don’t want to go outside. Why would they
choose the challenges of the outdoors
(“That’s boring mom!”) when they can be
easily entertained by TV, video games and
the internet?
But our highly structured lives, lived
primarily indoors, are not good for our
children’s health. Today we are raising
a generation of children who have lost
their connection with the outdoors.
It is a crisis that has become known as
“nature-deficit disorder.”
The result? In his book Last Child in the
Woods: Saving Our Children From
Nature Deficit Disorder, Richard Louv
shows that this disconnect may play a big
role in increased rates of obesity, Attention
Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD),
depression and stress in our children.
But today’s children will have very
different childhood memories.
Today, we lead busy and highly structured
lives. We get off of work and shuttle our
children to sports practice and music
lessons. Then we rush home in time to
feed them, help them finish homework and
get them into bed. This leaves them with
no unscheduled time.
When we do have some down time, most
of parents today don’t feel comfortable
letting our kids roam free through the
neighborhood without supervision. In fact,
experts estimate that a child’s range for
roaming and wandering today is one-ninth
of what ours was.
For many parents, some of our best childhood memories are of the outdoors. Whether
it was playing neighborhood freeze tag, building a fort in the nearby vacant lot,
splashing around in a creek, or riding our bike to the park, most of us had a lot of fun
playing outside. Our formative years consisted of hours of unstructured, outdoor play.
Getting children outside
is not just fun and games.
Their health may depend on it.
By Kyla Hastie and Shani Howard
Pediatric care providers are particularly
tuned into the problem of reduced time for
unstructured play. They’ve known for a
long time that getting children out and
moving about burns calories, lowering the
risk of childhood obesity. But new research
shows additional benefits of outside play.
A 2006 report from the American
Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) states
that free and unstructured play is
healthy — and in fact essential — for
helping children reach important social,
emotional, and cognitive developmental
milestones. Unstructured play, whether
indoors or outside, helps children manage
stress and become resilient.
Fortunately, “nature deficit disorder” is a
problem parents and communities can
solve. Spurred by the publication of Louv’s
book, a movement referred to as “No
Child Left Inside” is sweeping the nation.
Connecticut has launched a program to
get children and parents out to state parks
and provide more outdoor opportunities.
Flickr / AJ Schroetlin
Flickr / maxwell woods
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 15
Why Do Children Need
Nature and Play?
Research shows that children need to
spend time in nature for physical, mental
and emotional development. Here’s why*:
Nature reduces stress and lowers the risk
of depression. Many studies have shown
that a relationship with nature and animals
lowers blood pressure, reduces stress,
and wards off depression in both children
and adults.
Children work through issues by playing
outdoors. When something is troubling
you, how many of us have found quiet and
solitude in the outdoors? Nature has a
restorative, spiritual quality that enables
children (and adults) to think more clearly.
Outdoor experiences may combat Attention
Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
Children with ADHD are restless, and have
trouble paying attention, listening, following
directions, and focusing on tasks. Studies
have found that TV may increase a child’s
likelihood of developing concentration
problems, but that nature experiences may
improve a child’s ability to listen and focus.
Children who spend more time outdoors
may reduce their risk of obesity and other
physical health problems. 40 percent of
five- to eight-year-olds suffer cardiac
risk factors such as obesity. Two-thirds
of American children can’t pass a basic
physical. There is a growing body of
evidence suggesting contact with nature is
as important to children as good nutrition
and adequate sleep.
“Nature smart” children have heightened
sensory skills. Outdoor environments
challenge, excite, and stimulate our
sense (while controlled, indoor electronic
environments tend to drown our senses
with noise and visual stimulation). Outdoor
experiences help develop our kids’ sense
of sight, sound, smell, taste and touch all
at once. Nature-connected kids tend to
pay more attention to the world around
them, often noticing things that others
miss. They also tend to do better on
standardized testing.
Outdoor experiences foster more creativity.
Natural spaces stimulate children’s limitless
imaginations. Children who connect with
nature may be more inventive and better
problem solvers due to the hands-on
learning that the outdoors provides.
Learn more about nature-deficit disorder
and the AP’s study on the importance
of play at:
Many school districts are restoring
previous cuts in outdoor playtime and
investing in outdoor classrooms where
children can learn through direct contact
with nature. And in some communities,
developers are rethinking how they build
neighborhoods to include areas where
children can play safely.
Health care providers are also addressing
this problem. As a result of the AAP
report on children and play, health care
providers have been given new guidelines
for patients and parents, which include
recommending that all children be
afforded ample, unscheduled, independent,
non-screen time to be creative, to reflect,
and to decompress. Health care providers
are also encouraged to be advocates for
developing safe spaces for children to play.
As Louv says, “Healing the broken bonds
between our young and nature is in
everyone’s self-interest, not only because
aesthetics or justice demands it, but also
because our mental, physical and spiritual
health depend upon it.”
Time is one of the most valuable resources,
so reserve some of it for your kids to get
outside and play. It’s not just for fun.
Their health depends on it.
This article was adapted from one that
appeared in the March/April 2007 issue of
Athens Parent magazine. Kyla Hastie is an
outreach and partnerships coordinator
for the Service’s Southeast Regional Office
in Atlanta. Shani Howard is a nurse
practitioner at Oconee Pediatric Associates
in Watkinsville, Georgia.
terri jacobson / usfws
16 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
Class is in session at the Upper
Mississippi River National
Wildlife and Fish Refuge.
By Cindy Samples
A Winona State
University
pre-service teacher
shows students
how to identify
macroinvertebrates.
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 17
A crew of fifth graders climbs aboard the River Explorer and soon the boat is filled
with excitement. Children on the top deck try out binoculars and learn where the
“head” is located (they love the captain’s “sailor talk”). One young boy named Jordan
asks if I am a “cop” and whether he can keep the pair of binoculars I hand him.
Today 30 students, parents, teachers,
pre-service teachers from Winona State
University have joined staff from the
Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife
and Fish Refuge to explore the refuge by
water. Captain Dick Karnath, a veteran
riverboat pilot who goes by the name
“Captain Kutch,” steers the boat away
from the dock and we are underway.
“How many of you have ever been on the
river?” I ask. Most hands go up. “How
many of you have ever been on the Upper
Mississippi River National Wildlife and
Fish Refuge?” Only a few hands go up.
Then I ask, “What is a refuge?” Young
Jordan replies that it is a “place where
animals are protected.” I point to a white
refuge sign and explain that on this refuge
people can hunt, fish, hike, boat, and watch
wildlife — so refuges are for people, too.
In collaboration with refuge staff,
Winona State University developed this
interdisciplinary program to use the river
refuge as a natural “classroom.” The River
Explorer is the conduit by which students
can explore a myriad of subjects from
poetry to sociology.
“Through our summer workshops,
teachers learn first-hand about the refuge
and then they get to bring their students
on a river field trip once school is in
session,” said WSU Chemistry Professor
Jeanne Franz. “That’s a great way to
connect the teachers and students with
this refuge. Surveys from the workshop
indicate that the teachers and student
teachers are much more likely to
incorporate the Refuge into their
curriculum as a result of traveling
through the refuge with a refuge staff
member onboard.”
I instruct the crew to view an eagle nest
with their binoculars. One student
exclaims, “I see two heads!” Another
says, “Look there’s something in the
water is that a beaver?” “It’s a river rat!
It’s a muskrat.”
Noah, one of the Winona State
University pre-service teachers, shows
the students how to use their “Discovery
Scopes” and teaches them how to
identify macroinvertebrates. “Those
guys are really important to the animals
on the river,” he says. “Fish eat them,
ducks eat them, and you’re going to
discover what they look like. They are
tiny so you need the Scopes to see and
identify them. Let’s go overboard.”
The children comb the river’s edge
scooping up water. Soon there are shouts
of, “Oh my goodness, it’s moving, I found
a bug! Look there’s a worm thingy in
here! Ranger Cindy what is this?
I got a baby dragonfly in here! Look at
mine — it’s a baby mosquito!”
All too soon the children are back on the
boat as we motor upriver to the lunch
stop and canoe launch. The water is cold
today, so they will stay in their canoes
and avoid the temptation to swim.
After a day on the river refuge, the River
Explorer docks at Winona, Minnesota
and the children file off one by one.
Jordan, the young boy who asked if
I was a cop looks up at me and says,
“That was awesome.”
WSU sociology professor Todd Paddock
says the students’ day on the river
reinforces their connection to nature and
helps the understand the importance of
conserving the Upper Mississippi’s
natural treasures.
“I had a class of 28 students sign up for
my sociology class. When I told them the
class included a weekend trip on the river
refuge and that they needed to be ready to
get wet and muddy, the class size dropped
to nine,” Paddock says. “It just shows why
I need to get them out on the river. Next
time I won’t say anything about water or
mud. I truly believe that once they get
their feet wet it will create a connection
and they’ll begin caring about and for the
river refuge.”
Cindy Samples is a Refuge Ranger at
Upper Mississippi River National
Wildlife and Fish Refuge
Cindy Samples / USFWS
flickr / daisy baxter Cindy Samples / USFWS
18 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
By Jennifer Anderson
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 19
One morning in early June, a group of about 10 Girl Scouts in rubber boots and
waders revisited a wetland area they helped create a year earlier through a
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service partnership.
Each year, this innovative partnership is encouraging
more than 35,000 Girl Scouts to work with agencies to identify
conservation and outdoor projects in their communities.
provide them with opportunities to restore
native habitats, expose them to careers in
the outdoors and help them understand
their roles as caretakers of the land.
The Shawnee Council’s Camp White Rock
project was launched in 2004 when the
Service agreed to help restore land the
Girl Scouts use for educational purposes.
The Council applied for a $3,000 Linking
Girls to the Land grant, funded by the
Girl Scouts’ Elliott Wildlife Values Project,
U.S. Forest Service, EPA and Fish and
Wildlife Service, making the Shawnee
proposal among 20 that year to receive
the competitive grant. Jodi Schwarzer,
national manager of Linking Girls to the
Land for the Girl Scouts, explained that
the Council’s proposal appealed at a
national level because it carried an
educational component likely to result
in the partnership lasting beyond the
scope of the immediate project.
Partners for Fish and Wildlife State
Coordinator John Schmidt from the West
Virginia Field Office, joined by members
of the state Department of Natural
Resources, visited the site and developed a
preliminary design for the creation of the
wetland. An archaeologist with the U.S.
Department of Agriculture in Morgantown
determined the land contained nothing of
archaeological significance, and in April
2006, the U.S. Corps of Engineers issued
a Clean Water Act permit for the wetland
reconstruction, clearing the way for the
project to proceed. >>
The girls, all middle- and high-school
aged, were taking inventory of the
native grasses and invasive species
growing in the wetland, built on their 140-
acre Camp White Rock outdoor classroom
in Hampshire County, West Virginia. An
abundance of dragonflies, deer, raccoons,
frogs and other creatures once scarce in
the area are now drawn to the marsh. “If
we expose children to the beauty of nature,
they will be more inclined to treat the
natural world with respect and work to
protect it,” said Sue Jarvis, chief operating
officer for the Girl Scouts of Shawnee
Council in West Virginia.
The partnership between the Shawnee
Council and the Service is not unique.
Across America, Girl Scout councils are
joining together with Service biologists to
restore nature. They are planting native
grasses, pulling invasive weeds, studying
wetland habitats and planning
conservation projects on their privately
owned and public lands.
Begun in 1995 between the Girl Scouts of
the USA and several federal agencies
including the Fish and Wildlife Service,
Environmental Protection Agency and
Bureau of Land Management, the Linking
Girls to the Land partnership encourages
more than 35,000 Girl Scouts each year
to work with agencies to identify
conservation and outdoor projects in their
communities. The partnerships not only
enhance Girl Scout leadership skills and
their appreciation for nature but also
Girl Scouts search for macroinvertebrates
at Ditch Creek in the Grand Teton
National Park, Wyoming.
A cold, wet day at Daubenspeck
Community Nature Park in Indianapolis
doesn’t deter these girls from hauling
mulch and planting trees.
Jodi Stewart Deborah Ellman Schwarzer / Girl Scostu of hte USA
20 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
Prairie Partnership
In Iowa, where 99 percent of the native
prairie land has been lost to development
and agriculture, a Girl Scout-Fish and
Wildlife partnership led to the restoration
of prairie habitat on the 340-acre
Girl Scout Camp Conestoga, near
New Liberty, Iowa.
The project got its start in 2004 when Girl
Scout council staff member Hillary Blevins
approached Kraig McPeek, biologist with
the Rock Island, Illinois Ecological
Field Office, and explained that the Girl
Scouts of Eastern Iowa and Western
Illinois had already restored two plots
totaling 11 acres and were interested in
restoring a third.
McPeek’s office is experienced in working
with both private landowners and
nonprofit organizations and was eager to
help the Girl Scouts restore some of their
property, both for educational purposes
and to protect wildlife. The partnership
received not only a $2,500 Linking Girls
to the Land grant but also obtained an
$1,800 grant through the Partners for
Fish and Wildlife program, to purchase
native prairie seed. McPeek described the
six-acre plot as “marginal old pasture”
running along a hillside and overrun with
poison ivy and other invasive grasses,
trees and shrubs.
A contractor already on-site repairing
roads for the Girl Scouts cleared the land
and seeded it with a mix of 50 different
grass and flower species, all native
to Iowa. Unlike the two other plots
previously restored as either all grasses
or all flowers, the six-acre plot offers a
mix, which should add to the girls’
understandings of native vegetation
and the different species they attract,
McPeek said.
Although construction is complete, this
partnership has also not ended. Service
biologists are teaching the Girl Scouts
about how fire and other wildlife
management techniques are used to care
for the prairie, and plans are underway to
expand the curriculum to include one-day
seminars on identifying butterflies or
other prairie-related topics hosted by
Fish and Wildlife Service biologists.
Within two months, heavy equipment
operators from Canaan Valley National
Wildlife Refuge and the West Virginia
Field Office, in just one day, completed
construction of a short dike and spillway
to create approximately a half-acre of
wetland within Camp White Rock under
the direction of Al Rizzo, state coordinator
of Partners for Fish and Wildlife in the
Chesapeake Bay Field Office. Fish and
Wildlife Service biologists seeded and
mulched the area, and the water was
allowed to fill in naturally.
“The girls benefit because they are learning
the science behind what these agencies are
doing and developing real connections to their
public lands. This type of hands-on involvement
leads to a genuine and life-long commitment
to care for our planet.”
Jodi Schwarzer, national manager of the Linking Girls to the Land program for the Girl Scouts
The Girl Scouts have been exploring the
wetlands since they were developed and
going out monthly since January, said
Jarvis, of the Shawnee Council. They are
observing wildlife, looking at microscopic
organisms and learning to identify the
native and invasive species.
The partnership already is proving itself
sustainable; establishment of the wetland
led to a $32,600 grant awarded to the
council this past June from the West
Virginia Commission for National and
Community Service. The funds are to be
used to develop outdoor educational
programs on marsh ecosystems.
Future goals include having the Service
teach the girls about wetland habitats and
their importance in the ecosystem.
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 21
Because of the success of the project,
McPeek is confident the partnership will
not only continue but enable his office to
use the Camp Conestoga project as an
example for other landowners and
organizations in Iowa that would like to
pursue habitat restorations.
Just as the land benefits, so do the girls.
“They are learning the science behind
what these agencies are doing and
developing real connections to the public
lands,” stated Schwarzer, Linking Girls to
the Land National Manager. “This type
of hands-on involvement leads to a
genuine and life-long commitment to
care for our planet.”
Jennifer Anderson is a freelance writer
living in Falls Church, Virginia
Going Wild
When lifelong field ecologist Julie
Concannon, an environmental
contaminants team leader for the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service in Portland, Oregon,
became leader of a local Girl Scout troop
in 2005, she couldn’t wait to get the girls
out in nature.
But her expectations crashed when
several of the 11- to 14-year-olds showed
up for a camping and hiking trip along
muddy trails in flip-flops and cotton pants
and with Teddy bears in tow.
“I realized on that first camping trip that
connections to the landscape take time
and are experienced differently by each
girl,” she recalled.
Elaborate outdoors plans gave way to
learning the basics such as how to use
a compass, pack a backpack, cook in a
Dutch oven and keep an adequate supply
of food and water at all times — even in
the city.
Co-leader Cynthia Carlton shows
Zoe Naimo how to use a compass.
The girls will have to decide on the
project — whether it’s pulling invasive
plant species, restoring a riparian area
or countless other possibilities — and the
location. Some projects may be pricier
than others, but all are doable as long as
the girls are motivated and creative in
their fundraising. As Concannon put it:
“Their opportunities are limited only by
their imaginations.”
But are the girls ready to do their part
for the planet? When Concannon asked,
15-year-old Girl Scout Lindsey Carter
replied, “I would do it because it makes
me feel good inside.”
Even the youngest of the troop, 11-year-old
Zoe Naimo, said: “I would do anything to
save nature.”
Jennifer Anderson
After nine months of “basic training,” the
girls asked to go on a “real” camping trip.
To Concannon’s delight, they were ready to
connect with a wild landscape. She decided
to push the girls to the next step, applying
in June for a Linking Girls to the Land grant
to partner with the National Wildlife Refuge
System in the Northwest and Pacific Islands
to restore a part of nature.
Julie Concannon / USFWS Anne S. Fege
A Service biologist teaches Girl Scouts
about insects in their local environment.
22 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
“How much farther do we have to go?”
the girl behind me asks.
“How long do we have to walk?” her friend
chimes in.
“This could be a very long hike,” I think as
I lead 20 third graders along the Painted
Desert Trail at Imperial National Wildlife
Refuge north of Yuma, Arizona. The trail
is just over a mile, and we’ve barely begun.
“We have quite a ways to go,” I tell
the girls.
“Good! Because this is so fun!”
Big cities offer many choices and
opportunities that are unavailable in a
remote town the size of Yuma. Children
from Yuma have no zoo and few museums.
Their connection with nature is limited,
and they may be only vaguely aware of its
significance. They may live in the desert,
but they don’t live the desert.
Imperial National Wildlife Refuge offers
the chance to experience what these
children learn in the classroom. Today we
are awakening their senses to the desert
that surrounds them.
“We’ll look for signs of water,” I told the
hikers before we stepped onto the trail.
But when I asked them what those signs
might be, they merely stared at me.
Senses in the Imperial National Wildlife Refuge
is an oasis of life and learning
for thirsty young minds.
By Betty Mulcahy
Now we stop at a dry wash striated by
occasional water flow. I ask if anyone sees
signs of water. Several point to the cracked
dried mud. “That’s right. And what about
erosion on the hillside? Does anyone know
what erosion means?”
“We’ve discussed this in class,” the teacher
is quick to remind the pupils as they peer
up at the deep grooves, beginning to
connect what they’ve only read or heard
about with what they are now witnessing.
We walk down a wash to a wide, flat space
populated with cactus, creosote, palo
verde, and numerous other plants. As I
cup my hands around a creosote branch,
breathe on it and inhale, I invite the class
to join me. The children surround the bush
and inhale the acrid odor.
“It smells like rain!” several announce.
They know from experience something I
had to learn on my first trip to the desert.
I smile at their discovery. When I ask why
none of the plants have large leaves, they
eagerly recall what they’ve learned at
school. It’s becoming real for them.
One young girl brings me a leaf she has
plucked from a brittlebush. “Why is this
soft?” she asks. The bush will regrow the
leaf, but it has piqued the girl’s curiosity.
She is paying attention to details.
“As we walk, let’s look for holes where
animals live,” I tell the group. Intrigued,
the students locate a hillside riddled with
various sized and shaped burrows.
“There are some tracks!” one declares
after investigating the entrances to these
homes. Increasingly, the children are
honing their observation skills. They begin
seeing signs and details that I miss.
And I begin to understand why people
teach. Igniting excitement and awareness
in these students has augmented my
own senses.
“Now see if you can count the number of
colors in the rocks as we walk,” I say. Soon
we stop again to investigate the different
shades. They come up with “reddish-orange”
and “pinkish-brownish-whitish”
and “purple-maroon” and “green.”
One child comes up with “blue.”
“Blue?” I ask. But then I realize that
some of the dark gray could appear blue.
I’ve learned something.
After climbing a steep incline, we stop
at the highest point of the trail.
“Does anyone see a sign of water in
the distance?” I ask.
Answers of erosion and caked mud
abound. “Look farther,” I insist.
“Way in the distance.”
“It’s green,” one child offers.
Then someone spots the ribbon of blue.
“That’s the Colorado River,” I say. “If you
were a bighorn sheep, that’s where you’d
have to go for a drink. How many of you
would want to travel that far just to
Chuck Mulcahy / USFWS
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 23
Desert
drink?” Most shake their heads. One,
however, offers to walk the six hilly, rocky
miles right now. I admire his enthusiasm.
When we descend again to the wash,
I ask the group to sit on the gravel.
“Close your eyes and listen,” I say. “Each
time you hear a different sound, hold up
a different finger.”
I give the children one minute of silence
with their eyes closed. It must seem an
eternity, but not one makes a sound except
for an occasional foot crunching the little
stones. “Open your eyes,” I say when time
is up. “What did you hear?”
One child heard an insect buzzing in her
ear. Another heard the wind through the
trees. Still another heard an airplane in
the distance. “I heard a lion roar,” one
proclaims. I don’t dispute it. Imaginations
have been sharpened this morning.
We’re coming to the end of the hike, and I
have heard few if any complaints. “I want
to stay here,” one boy says.
“Aren’t you hungry?” his friend asks.
“Yes. But I’d rather stay here than eat.”
I don’t try to hide my satisfaction. Making
a difference in a child’s life, I find, also
makes a difference in mine.
Now the children are continually pointing
out signs of water and animal burrows
and colors in rocks. They are excited with
their discoveries.
When we round one more hill, the parking
lot comes into view. A boy in front of the
line marches toward the bus. “This is the
most funnest field trip I ever been on!” he
declares. “Even better than Sea World!”
I wonder if this child has ever been to Sea
World. Nevertheless, I stop him long
enough to give him a hug. This is one of
the most funnest things I’ve ever done too!
Chattering with new awe, the children
board the bus. I may have awakened their
senses, but they have awakened my sense
of wonder.
Betty Mulcahy is a Volunteer Interpretive
Naturalist at Imperial National Wildlife
Refuge in Yuma, Arizona
Chuck Mulcahy / USFWS
Imperial National Wildlife Refuge offers children the chance to experience what they learn in the classroom.
The author teaches young
conservationists about life in
the desert.
Illustrations by Tim Knepp
Black-footed Ferret
American Alligator
kids coloring page
California Condor
Share this pull-out section
with a child to further his or
her interest in nature.
Polar Bear
Emperor Penguin
Sea Turtle
Gray Wolf
kids coloring page
Bald Eagle
26 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
science
Traditional caches are located all over the
world. But since leaving behind a cache in
federal wildlife refuges is illegal, there’s
another component to geocaching that
entices participants to these wonderful
wildlife areas: Virtual caching.
With a virtual cache, participants use
clues, GPS waypoints and landmarks to
get themselves to a particular spot in the
reserve. Clever virtual caches can include
amazing scenic spots, lesser-known public
trails, key bird watching spots, locations of
natural mineral deposits, or other natural
wonders. It’s low-impact treasure hunting
at its best.
To assist local cachers, rangers at the
Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife
and Fish Refuge in Minnesota created a
special virtual cache with multiple
locations and questions. When cachers
complete the entire circuit, they return to
Treasure Hunting
Geocaching — a new-age combination
of orienteering and hide-and-seek —
gets families around the world out
and hiking together.
By Kathleen M. Reilly
Janell Lovelace’s three-year old son,
Bram, is an experienced treasure hunter.
And we’re not just talking pretend
treasures, either. Bram hikes through
forests and down trails until his parents’
Global Positioning System (GPS) lets his
family know they’re getting close to the
treasure they’re seeking. Once they’re
close enough, Bram rummages among the
fallen leaves and peers into tree stumps,
until — eureka! Hidden treasure!
The Durham, North Carolina family is
part of a growing worldwide trend —
geocaching. This new-age combination of
orienteering and hide-and-seek gets
families around the world out and hiking
together. Here’s how it works: Someone
hides a treasure box (“cache”) and notes
its coordinates — its unique position on the
globe. Then, they post those coordinates
online at >
Craig Springer / USFWS
Mat Poole / USFWS
30 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
The Service has a partnership
with the Coevolution Institute,
the nonprofit administrator for
a collaboration known as the
North American Pollinator
Protection Campaign (NAPPC).
Through NAPPC, more than 100
government, private, university,
and nonprofit organizations are
working to promote the health of
resident and migratory North
American pollinators. NAPPC
partners have created a variety
of educational products on
pollinators. The most exciting
is Nature’s Partners:
Pollinators, Plants and You:
a comprehensive pollinator
curriculum for grades 3-6. The
curriculum is available online
.
NAPPC also has a Web site with
tools helpful to educators, such
as information on gardening for
pollinators, things children can do
to help pollinators and fact sheets
on pollinators and wildlife. These
documents and links are located
in the “Resources” section of the
.
For more information contact
or visit .
Dolores A. Savignano,
Division of Environmental Quality,
Arlington, Virginia
Learning About the
Birds and Bees
What do raspberries, chocolate,
and almonds have in common?
Besides being best-selling ice
cream sundae toppings, they are
also foods from plants that
require pollinators. Raspberries
are typically pollinated by bees,
as are almonds. Chocolate is
pollinated by a small fly called
a midge.
Pollinators are critically important
to both the ecosystem and the
U.S. economy. More than 75
percent of the flowering plants
rely on pollinators, and honey
bees alone are responsible for an
estimated $15 billion worth of
pollinator services to agriculture
in the U.S. Many of our fruits,
vegetables, and nuts, as well as
other food products rely on
pollinators. Pollinators include
endangered and threatened
species, such as the long-nosed
bat, and migratory birds, such as
the ruby-throated hummingbird.
Activities centered on pollinators
are a great way to connect
children to nature, and questions
can be explored with little or no
equipment required. For example,
how are wind-pollinated flowers
distinguished from animal-pollinated
flowers? What does
the color, shape or smell of a
flower tell us about its pollinator?
What happens if pollinators are
not available?
Information on pollinators can be
combined with tips on good
nutrition, since diets high in fruits
and vegetables (foods dependent
on pollinators) are healthy.
Without animal pollinators, our
diets would be much more limited
and less flavorful. We are not the
only animals whose diets include
animal-pollinated food. Fruits and
berries are a component of the
diet of many birds and some
mammals, such as bears.
children with nature. From
there, we can teach them how
to properly care for these
precious resources.”
RBFF offers other programs and
resources aimed at piquing
children’s interest in outdoor
activities. The Passport to Fishing
and Boating Program, which
many organizations use to plan
events throughout the year and
during National Fishing and
Boating Week in June, provides
materials to enable even non-anglers
and boaters to introduce
the sports to kids and families.
To help newcomers get started,
RBFF also offers downloadable
tip sheets on kids and freshwater
fishing, basic boat care, fishing
terminology, how to tie knots and
more. These materials may be
downloaded at .
RBFF’s TakeMeFishing.org Web
site hosts a database with more
than 11,000 locations to boat and
fish. Site visitors can search by
state, region or zip code to get all
the information they need to plan
a day on the water, including
“Family Friendly Hot Spots” —
places to fish and boat that make
it easy to take the family. The
site also features the Kids
Fishing Hall of Fame, where
parents, friends and relatives
can honor the accomplishments
of junior anglers.
For more information about
RBFF programs that help
connect children with nature,
visit .
Stephanie West, Recreational
Boating and Fishing Foundation,
Alexandria, Virginia
(Fun, continued)
microscopes and determine
water quality. They also
measure, tag and release their
fishing catch and log all the
information online.
“With many parents working
two jobs and kids engaged in
computers and videogames, they
don’t have the opportunity to get
outdoors,” Fobian says.
Another grant program
introduces kids to fishing and
boating in a family setting at local
parks. RBFF and the National
Recreation and Park Association
(NRPA) created the Take Me
Fishing™ Community Grants
Initiative that helps local park
and recreation directors offer
instruction and loaner equipment,
and provide convenient access
to safe, public fishing and
boating facilities.
According to RBFF Education
and Outreach Manager Jim
Stewart, “Providing meaningful
introductions to these activities
at safe, family-friendly public
facilities can help spark and
sustain children’s interest and
participation, and expose these
activities to families of all
backgrounds and incomes.”
Kathy Spangler, NRPA’s director
of national partnerships, says the
grant program raises awareness
about more than just boating and
fishing. “Public lands don’t exist
without stewardship, and people
of all ages need to understand
how to conserve them,” she says.
“We see the programs as a
valuable first step in reconnecting
around the service
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 31
students release their salmon fry
into the wild, wondering where
they may end up.
In addition to in-class learning,
many of these classes have
“adopted” nearby streams where
they take field trips to test water
quality, wade in the water looking
for water bugs, and learn about
soil composition and how it
factors into plant growth for
particular habitats. Students also
are learning valuable testing
techniques and data collection
skills that are reflected in their
journal entries. Service learning
projects are woven into other
class projects during the school
year, such as tree planting, trash
removal and trail work. Stream
adoptions are a cooperative
effort with other federal agencies
and local conservation districts.
Cheri Anderson, Information
and Education Manager,
Underwood, Washington
Salmon in the Classroom
Sixteen fourth- and fifth-grade
classes throughout Washington’s
Columbia River Gorge are
learning about the extraordinary
world of the Pacific salmon by
raising the endangered fish in
their classrooms. The “Salmon
in the Classroom” program is
provided by the Service’s
Columbia Gorge Information and
Education Office. During the past
eight years, students have come
to anticipate the “fish lady” who
frequents their classroom to
teach them all sorts of interesting
things about salmon and lead
them on outdoor adventures.
The schools also do their part:
teachers decorate their
classrooms with stuffed and
colored salmon; children’s
literature about salmon crams
book shelves; school walls are
adorned with unique art and
stories about salmon; music
classes teach songs with salmon
themes; and several of the
schools hold evening showcases
to allow parents to see and hear
what their children have learned
about this miraculous fish.
The course begins with a visit to
the Spring Creek National Fish
Hatchery so students can see
salmon spawning. The eggs
collected from these adults are
later taken to classrooms for
students to observe. During the
next few months, students write
daily journal entries, use math to
compute hatch dates and percent
survival, and learn about the
importance of habitat and the
salmon’s amazing ability to adapt
to its environment. As the young
salmon grow, students begin
feeding them daily. They continue
to observe and document the
species’ growth and survival.
The program culminates when
Washington Ecological Services
Field Office in Washington State.
It is a great example of an
adaptable outdoor learning
experience that not only connects
students to nature but instills
respect for watersheds for
years to come. It also meets
Washington State academic
learning targets and provides
teacher planning and event
logistical guidelines. The program
is the result of a 12-year
partnership of agencies and
organizations, including the Fish
and Wildlife Service, Chelan
County Conservation District,
U.S. Forest Service, Cascade
Analytical, Washington State
Department of Ecology,
Washington State Conservation
Commission and various schools
and communities.
The Kids in the Creek curriculum
won first place in the Interpretive
Media Awards Competition at the
2006 conference for National
Association for Interpretation
(NAI). The competition promotes
excellence in the delivery of
natural, cultural, and historical
interpretation.
Susan Blair and Corky Broaddus,
Leavenworth National Fish
Hatchery, Leavenworth,
Washington; Judy DeLavergne,
Ecological Services,
Wenatchee, Washington.
around the service
Cheri Anderson helps a
student from Whitson
Elementary inWhite Salmon,
Washington monitor water
quality on Jewett Creek
as part of a larger stream
adoption program.
pacific
Kids in the Creek
The “Kids in the Creek” program
in north central Washington State
has helped connect children with
local watersheds for more than a
dozen years.
Each spring, hundreds of high
school students pull on waders
and slip into an outdoor
classroom — a cold mountain
stream. For one day, students will
experience what it is like to be a
biologist. Most of them have
never been this close to nature.
They collect and identify aquatic
macroinvertebrates, map
stream features and fish habitat,
measure stream flow and
temperature, analyze chemical
characteristics, identify riparian
plants, and observe and identify
watershed geology and
boundaries. At the end of the
class, students present land
use plans to actual planning
commissioners. The innovative
curriculum gives students and
teachers a better understanding
of watersheds and the critical
role of human land management
practices.
The Kids in the Creek program
was created by the Leavenworth
National Fish Hatchery, Mid-
Columbia Fisheries Resource
Office, and the Central
USFWS
Students participating
in Kids in the Creek
test water quality on
Icicle Creek.
Jim Anderson
32 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
ESA 101
Biologists at the Service’s
Arizona Ecological Services
Office (AESO) teamed-up with
Thunderbird High School in
Phoenix, Arizona to create a
year-long pilot curriculum
that introduces urban public
high school students to the
Endangered Species Act (ESA)
and the plight of Arizona’s
threatened, endangered, and
sensitive species.
Three classes of freshman and
sophomore accelerated biology
students were asked to
individually choose a native plant,
animal, or invertebrate species
to research and integrate into
a year-long project and final
oral presentation. This pilot
curriculum also includes a
history of the ESA and how this
pioneering legislation has been
used to conserve and recover
listed species.
Section 7 of the ESA is used as a
framework in this curriculum. The
curriculum requires each student
to complete several individual
writing assignments during the
academic year addressing
historical and current threats to
their chosen species and the
current status of their species.
It also requires students to create
a hypothetical proposed action
affecting their species, the
environmental baseline in the
area of their proposed action,
and their recommendations on
how to minimize effects to their
species. In essence, each student
completes a biological opinion on
their chosen species.
In addition, students were
required to contact or interview
professional biologists in
the public, private, or academic
sectors to hone communication
skills and get additional
information on their project.
around the service
This pilot curriculum was
designed as a “backdrop” to
integrate other major topics
that are covered in the
Glendale Unified High School
District’s accelerated biology
curriculum throughout the
school year. Topics include
cell biology, cellular respiration,
photosynthesis, genetics,
evolution, ecology, animal
behavior, biochemistry, and
mammalian physiology. The fact
that many or all of these topics
pertain directly to issues affecting
students’ chosen species
reinforces their understanding of
the connectivity of ecosystems
and the cause and effect
dynamics of actions on the
landscape.
As an attempt to reconnect urban
students with nature, several
students were granted the
opportunity to join AESO
biologists in the field to learn
more about native ecology and
wildlife and gain insight into the
professional careers of Service
biologists. For example, students
participated in native fish electro-shocking
surveys in a pristine
canyon stream, conducted Yuma
clapper rail surveys in marshland
habitat; conducted nocturnal
ranid frog surveys and
identification; conducted northern
Mexican gartersnake surveys;
and collected specimens for a
captive propagation and release
conservation project.
Jeff Servoss, Ecological Services,
Phoenix, Arizona
Jef Servos / USFWS
Bernard NWR, provides
opportunities for students to
discover the ecology of a
bottomland forest and the impact
invasive species have on the
natural environment.
Fueled by local partnerships, the
DEP program has encouraged
involvement by new schools and
organizations during its 12-year
history. A Nature of Learning
grant to the Friends of Brazoria
Wildlife Refuges enabled
Northside Elementary School in
Angleton, Texas to incorporate
multiple field trips to the refuges
into their fourth grade curriculum.
The year-long program integrates
nature into all subject materials.
A Coastal Management Plan
grant from Texas General Land
Office was instrumental in
providing environmental
education equipment and
displays for the Discovery Center.
The Cradle of Texas Chapter of
the Texas Master Naturalists
supports the program and is the
source for most of the trained
volunteer docents. Nearly 2,000
volunteer hours were donated by
these volunteers during field trips
in 2006.
Jennifer L. Sanchez, Project
Leader, Texas Mid-Coast NWR
Complex, Angleton, Texas
USFWS
southwest
DEEP in the Heart of Texas
Volunteers, partners and staff at
the Texas Mid-Coast National
Wildlife Refuges bring the
Discovery Environmental
Education Program (DEP) alive.
Thousands of students and adults
experience nature each year in
this intensive hands-on outdoor
education program coordinated
by Texas Mid-Coast Training
Technician Bryan Adams. DEP
enables children to experience
the Texas Gulf coast much as it
was before the arrival of humans,
and they are often amazed at
what is outside their front door.
Headquartered at the Discovery
Center at the Brazoria NWR, the
DEP program allows students
to discover a multitude of
invertebrates in a freshwater
pond; touch and learn about
reptiles; examine ways in which
water chemistry affects life; and
learn about the importance of
wetlands to the fisheries of the
Gulf of Mexico. The Discovery
Center allows students to bring
samples from the wild into a
laboratory setting and conduct
experiments and observations
they could not make in the field.
The Discover Outpost, at the
Hudson Woods Unit of San
Students from Thunderbird
High School in Phoenix,
participate in a Ranid frog
survey on Hassayampa River
in Maricopa County.
The DEEP program
allows students to
discover a multitude
of invertebrates in a
freshwater pond.
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 33
is a reality. Now in its fourth year,
this unique partnership between
the Service and the Fergus Falls
Independent School District 544
brings 100 students each school
day to the Prairie Wetlands
Learning Center.
The students are taught primarily
by two school district teachers
housed at the Prairie Wetlands
Learning Center, supplemented
with field, instructional, and
planning support from Service
environmental educators. Two
indoor classrooms house 25
students each, but those
classrooms are often empty while
the students spend time in their
true classroom: the 325 acres of
prairies and wetlands right
outside their door.
For students in a traditional
classroom, a typical day includes
reading textbooks and answering
questions; for students in the
Prairie Science Class, a typical
day includes reading the land and
asking questions. Prairie Science
Class teachers and staff at the
Prairie Wetlands Learning Center
use the seasonal changes and
rhythms of the prairie wetland
ecosystem to bring lessons to life.
National, state, and local
education standards are
incorporated in daily activities
and long term studies. Students
summarize and reflect on their
learning through writing and
literature assignments such as
describing their impressions of
the monarch butterfly or scientific
reports on the process of
capturing and banding ducks.
Fractions and percentages take
on new meaning as students
study them in the context of plant
cover on a wetland or invasive
species on a prairie tract.
By studying famous naturalists
such as Aldo Leopold, Rachael
Carson, Lewis and Clark, and
midwest
A Classroom Without Walls
Take a moment and think back to
when you were in fifth grade. You
probably had a typical classroom
with rows of desks and a
chalkboard in the front. If you
were lucky, your classroom had
a window or two facing outside,
and if you were really lucky, your
desk might have been near a
window. Maybe your classroom
even had an aquarium or two.
The only time you got outside
was for recess, to climb on the
monkey bars or play a game
of kickball.
Now imagine something
completely different. Every day of
the school year, you take a short
bus ride to the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service’s Prairie
Wetlands Learning Center. You
still spend two hours learning
science, applied math, writing,
and health — but not just from a
textbook. You learn math by
measuring the wing of a duck
you’ve just banded, or by
recording the length of the seed
head on a native plant such as
big bluestem. You experience
science firsthand by capturing
aquatic invertebrates and
comparing what you find in
different wetlands, or making
sound maps on the prairie. You
write about changes that occur
throughout the year in your one-meter
prairie plot, or create a
haiku about your experience
tracking a mink across the marsh
on snowshoes. And as far as
health goes, well, you’re outside
walking and exploring every day.
Sometimes it doesn’t feel like
learning at all — but it most
certainly is.
For fifth graders in the Prairie
Science Class in Fergus Falls,
Minnesota, the second scenario
around the service
Byrd Baylor, students discover
different ways to observe nature,
sharpen their observation skills
and deepen their sense of
wonder about the natural world.
This unique educational
partnership is proving that using
the environment as an integrating
context for traditional subject
areas works for students,
teachers, and parents. The first
three years of the program were
formally evaluated, and the
results have been positive.
Evaluations have shown that in
the Prairie Science Class,
students learn science, applied
math, and writing at least as
effectively as their counterparts
in the traditional fifth grade
classroom. Their motivation for
learning, attitudes towards the
environment and stewardship
behavior improve. But perhaps
the proof is best heard from the
students themselves:
“It’s made me a better thinker
because it helps you take the
time to think. Like if you are
outside and looking at tracks, you
think about what the animal was
doing and why it was there,” said
one student. “In the weather, you
think about how the temperatures
have changed. Yesterday the
humidity was 88 percent and
today it was 100 percent. And you
think about the difference and
what affect that will have.”
“It changes your attitude,” said
another student. “In fourth grade
I got detention all the time. This
year I haven’t had any detention.
I stay out of trouble because I
have more to do. I like coming
to school this year.”
Thanks to bonding money
directed to the City of Fergus Falls
from the Minnesota legislature,
the PWLC visitor center will be
expanded to include four
additional classrooms.
Construction is slated to begin
this summer, and Prairie Science
Class enrollment will double in
fall 2008.
For more information about the
Prairie Science Class, visit
or call
218/736 0938.
Laura A. Bonneau, Visitor
Services, Prairie Wetlands
Learning Center, Fergus Falls,
Minnesota
USFWS
For students
in the Prairie
Science Class,
a typical day
includes reading
the land and
asking questions.
34 / Fish & Wildlife News Summer/Fall 2007
The program culminated in the
SEDS Bookfair. Teachers,
parents, students and onlookers
helped the Service raise more
than $400 to buy wildlife books for
Lee Expressive Arts School’s
media center.
“SEDS is a long-term
commitment by our office
towards ensuring future
conservation in Missouri,” said
Missouri Ecological Services
Field Supervisor Charlie Scott.
“We hope to expand this program
into more and more schools in the
near future.”
Ashley Spratt, Ecological
Services, Columbia, Missouri
around the service
Roberts also introduced
endangered Topeka shiners to the
school’s new aquarium, which
was donated by the Service.
Students were surprised to know
these endangered minnows can
be found in creeks right in their
own backyards.
Biologist Jill Utrup introduced
students to raptors and birds of
prey, and told the children about
recovery efforts that saved the
bald eagle from extinction.
Toward the end of the
presentation, the students were
surprised by visitors from the
MU Raptor Rehabilitation Center,
who brought two real birds of
prey, the great-horned owl and
American kestrel.
Planting SEEDS
The Missouri Ecological Services
Office’s SEDS program
(Students, the Environment, and
Endangered Species) brings fish
and wildlife biologists and the
endangered species they work to
protect into the classroom to
educate students about wildlife
and environmental conservation.
The program was unveiled at Lee
Expressive Arts School in
Columbia, Missouri during
National Environmental Education
Week. Service biologist Heidi
Kuska took a class of fifth graders
to an outdoor park to introduce
them to the world of caves and
karsts and the bat species that
call them home. Back in the
classroom, Sybill Amalon from
the U.S. Forest Service
introduced the students to
“Chewbacca” and “Pinky,”
two brown bats.
“The bat felt really hairy and the
wing was kinda smooth, but
kinda rough,” said 11-year-old
Tarus Moore.
Service biologist Andy Roberts
took students back to the time of
the dinosaurs, unveiling a shovel-nosed
sturgeon in a mobile tank
in the school’s media center.
The shovel-nosed sturgeon is a
close relative to the prehistoric
and endangered pallid sturgeon
and features the same sharp,
moustache-like barbells along
its mouth.
Service biologist Andy Roberts shows a shovel-nosed sturgeon
to two Lee School fifth graders.
Rick Hansen / USFWS
southeast
World of Discovery
We all have seen children
enthralled when someone brings
out an animal or when they are
exploring the natural world on our
public lands — that wide-eyed
look of discovery and sense
that this experience will stay
with them for a long time, if not
a lifetime.
The SEWE (South Eastern
Wildlife and Environment
Education) Earth Stewards
program is giving students along
the coast of South Carolina
multiple discovery moments and
an understanding and respect for
the mission of the National
Wildlife Refuges found in their
own backyards.
Cape Romain NWR became a
part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service’s Earth Stewards project
in 1998. Since then, SEWE Earth
Stewards has become a vibrant,
growing environmental education
project in conjunction with the
SEWE Visitor and Environmental
Education Center and the SEWE
Association, the Friends group for
South Carolina Lowcountry
Refuge Complex (Cape Romain,
Ernest F. Hollings ACE Basin, and
Waccamaw refuges).
The initial project focused on
fifth-grade students in a local
rural school. After looking at the
state educational standards for
that age, the SEWE Association
decided to highlight freshwater
wetland habitats that are
abundant in the coastal plain and
are important areas for many
Summer/Fall 2007 Fish & Wildlife News / 35
“It’s never boring,” said 16-year
old Stephanie Dorsainvil. Josette
Kaufman, Marshall Foundation
executive director, says the
project also introduces urban
youth to the Everglades. “We
hope that giving them a positive,
hands-on experience will help
them develop an interest in the
wetland wilderness in their
backyards.”
One photo from each child
will be in an exhibit traveling
around Palm Beach County
later this year.
Karen Leggett, NWRS
Communications, Washington, DC
Loxahatchee
Through the Lens
Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee
National Wildlife Refuge helped
40 students from low income
schools become amateur
photographers during the annual
Trail Spruce-Up volunteer event
sponsored by the Arthur R.
Marshall Foundation.
“The Everglades through the Eyes
of Children” project is funded by
the Palm Beach County Cultural
Council. Students ages nine to 17
learned basic photography from
skilled mentors and then took
pictures of people and nature
around the refuge.
migratory birds and threatened
and endangered species. The
SEWE Association hired a
teacher to put together the
program curriculum and to guide
the group through initial classes
with students. Eventually, the
program featured a set of
cross-curriculum lesson plans
that included a field trip to a
swamp for hands-on learning
activities. Since 2000, the
program has grown from the
initial school with 50 students to
eight elementary schools with
approximately 650 students
and one middle school with
60 students.
What do SEWE Earth Stewards
do? Throughout the eight-week
curriculum they read books on
animals and their habitats; write
stories and poems; calculate
water absorption rates in wetland
experiments; discover animal
adaptations and behaviors; and
identify flora and fauna of
swamps and learn about
interdependence. Since Cape
Romain NWR is composed of salt
marsh and barrier islands and
only accessible by boat, the
SEWE Association worked with
the Francis Marion National
Forest (where the SEW